Read Online A Light in the Window by Julie Lessman - Free Book Online

to battle.
    Patrick gouged the back of his neck, then expelled a weighty sigh, his eyes locked with Sam’s. “If I win the toss, you’ll step aside and leave her be?”
    He acquiesced with a dip of his head. “I will.” His eyes glittered. “And you’ll do the same. Unless the winner fails, that is. Then all bets are off, and it’s each man for himself.”
    “Fail.” It was more of a statement than a question as Patrick stared. Jaw grinding, he clenched his lips in a tight line. “I don’t fail, Sam.”
    Sam responded with a flash of white teeth. “Nor do I, Patrick, but something tells me Marceline Murphy is more than capable of making fools of us both. So … shall we have Lucas toss the coin to put at least one of us out of our misery?”
    Stomach in knots, Patrick glanced over his shoulder. “Lucas—can you help us out over here?”
    “You boys needin’ another brew?” Lucas Brannigan ambled forward, wiping the sweat from his brow with a muscled arm.
    “Soon,” Sam said with a grin, “but for now, we need an impartial party in the toss of a coin.”
    “Do you, now? And to what are we tossin’, might I ask—the cost of six beers?”
    “Nothing so crass, Mr. Brannigan, I assure you.” Sam gave Patrick a wink. “And something far more satisfying, although I suspect the headaches may be far worse.”
    He tossed the coin and Lucas caught it with a chuckle. “Now you boys have me intrigued.”
    Sam hooked an arm around Patrick’s shoulder with a laugh. “A woman, Lucas, of the very highest caliber who, most likely, would only entertain the notion of one rogue at a time.”
    Patrick grunted, giving Sam a sideways smile. “If any at all.”
    “Oh, she’ll entertain all right—it’s just up to Lucas as to whom.” Sam deferred to the barkeep with a bow of his head. “If you will, Mr. Brannigan, our fate is in your hands.”
    Lucas polished the silver coin against his white apron in a show of ceremony before placing it on the side of his fist. He peered up beneath bushy red brows. “Who makes the call?”
    Sam slapped Patrick on the shoulder. “Let my friend call it.”
    “All right, then, Patrick calls it in the air. Ready, gentlemen?”
    Palms damp, Patrick nodded, his breath stifled as if the blasted coin lodged in his very throat.
    In a blur of motion, Lucas flipped his thumb, and the coin sailed high in the air, spinning like Patrick’s stomach. “Heads,” he called, voice hoarse.
    The flash of silver twirled several times before plummeting into Lucas’s hand a fraction of a second before he sandwiched it with a meaty palm. Nobody breathed as he lifted a finger to take a peek, a broad grin spanning the whole of his ruddy face. “Well, the devil take it,” he said with a wink. “Now here’s a lass in trouble if ever there was …”

Chapter Six
     

    Clipboard to the chest of her high-buttoned shirtwaist, Marcy stared wide-eyed at the church auditorium teeming with people, tongue gliding her teeth at the rate of four times a minute. She gulped, fingers digging into Julie’s arm as a group of rowdy street urchins almost knocked her down in an impromptu game of shadow tag while a ring of little girls played duck, duck, goose in the corner of the room. Despite windows thrust high along one side of the gym, the summer night was sticky and still, papers rustling as adults fanned themselves and chatted in endless rows of wooden folding chairs set up in front of the stage. From mothers patting babies over their shoulders to the tattered and curious homeless who wandered in from Evan’s soup kitchen next door, it seemed they had a full house. Expelling a shaky sigh, Marcy couldn’t help wonder if she’d bitten off more than she could chew. “I had no idea we would have such a turnout,” she whispered into Julie’s ear as her friend played a scale on a battered upright piano.
    Julie chuckled, fingers carefully plunking to test each ivory while she glanced across the crowded,