Read Wolf's Lady (After the Crash Book 6.5) for Free Online Page B

have to agree to let me play with your hair.”
    Surprise lit his face before melting into a smile. He ducked his head almost bashfully. “It’s just hair. You can play with it anytime you want.”
    She laughed and went past him through the door he held open for her. “You’re making it too easy for me. You should hold your hair hostage. Tell me I can’t touch it until I agree to marry you.”
    Sand stopped her by touching his fingertips to her shoulder. “No.” His face was very earnest. “I want you to accept me. I want that so bad it’s all I can think of. But I won’t use blackmail to get you. I want you to be my mate because you want it too.”
    She swallowed a quick stab of emotion. What exactly the emotion was she wasn’t sure, but it brought tears crowding the back of her eyes. She hurried past him to the steps. He fell in beside her.
    “Let’s go down to the park,” she said quickly. “I like to walk in the garden there.”
    “Sure.” They walked in companionable silence for a few blocks before he spoke again. “Why doesn’t Virginia like you?”
    Amanda sighed. “Ginny is an unhappy person. Her family paid nearly all they had for her to marry. They belong to a church that believes all women should be married. They don’t approve of my profession.”
    “Hm.” Sand’s face looked interested. “Where is her husband?”
    “He died a year ago. Ginny is twenty-nine. The city ordinance requires all women from eighteen to forty to pay a tax to remain single, or go to work in one of the brothels.”
    “Even widows?”
    “Even widows. The Limit might be a brothel, but Sky doesn’t force anyone to accept appointments. It’s a good place for Ginny. Her sons live with her parents, but she has two days off a week to visit them.”
    “So why does she not like you?”
    “Well, I’m a whore.” She laughed lightly. “Which according to her church, means I’m evil and going to hell. Besides that, I make more money than she does, and I don’t have to do any of the labor she does. Other people wash my clothes, cook my food, and clean the house I live in.”
    Sand’s brow was furrowed as he tried to understand. “Is she jealous?”
    Amanda shrugged. “I figure it’s got to be part of it.”
    The entrance to the park came in sight. She grabbed his hand. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I want to show you my favorite spot here. Years ago this was a botanical garden, but now it’s a park.”
    She rushed Sand past the elegant wrought iron fence, through the profusion of blooming beds of flowers, to a small area in the rear section of the garden. There weren’t any colorful blossoms here, only over-grown ornamental grasses lining the gravel pathway. There was a fountain in its center, a collection of logs and stones for the water to pour over, but it was dry now. Amanda pulled Sand to one of the benches scattered around the clearing.
    “Sit down,” she invited, settling herself on the bench.
    He sat, leaving a few inches between their thighs. It surprised her; she’d expected him to take advantage of their privacy. “This is your favorite place?” he asked, looking around.
    Maybe he thought it was plain here. Just a few yards from where they sat the gardens blazed with the heavy blooms of gold chrysanthemums and red asters. She liked that too, but this was her special place. It was unkempt and ignored by the city employees who struggled to keep the front areas up, so the grass grew up around the bench and almost hid it, but she loved it here. She was surprised by how much she wanted to share it with him.
    “Yes. When I come here I feel close to my mom.”
    New interest brightened his dark eyes. “Your mom comes here?”
    The grief, dulled by time though it was, rose in her throat. “No. She died when I was ten, but this is where I remember her. On Sunday afternoons me and my mom and dad would come here. It used to be kept up a lot better. The grass was mown and I would run around