Read Online Breaking the Rules by Barbara Samuel, Ruth Wind - Free Book Online

figure out how he knew her, and what she was afraid of.
    The pieces just didn’t hang together. Even given the fact that somebody, somewhere had taught her to hustle pool, Zeke would bet she really was exactly what she seemed, a nice woman from the Midwest who’d done exactly what she was supposed to do all her life. And yet, now she was in enough trouble she had to change her name and hide out in a little town a long way from home.
    What kind of trouble could a woman like Mattie possibly find?
    There was an easy answer to that question. The only obvious answer: an abusive husband. He thought of her burned hands and the sad story she’d told about them, but he’d told a lie or two about his own scars. No one wanted to admit to having been abused. There was always sick, secret guilt attached.
    Restlessly, he stirred his coffee and tapped the spoon on the edge of the cup.
    Maybe it wasn’t a husband. Maybe it was something else and he just filled in the abusive angle from his own experience.
    Whatever it was, it was bad. And whatever Mattie thought, she didn’t have the tools to stay hidden long. It wasn’t as hard as most people thought to find somebody you really wanted to find. Most folks, and he’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that Mattie was one of them, left clues in a bright red trail behind them.
    Damn.
    The old need filled him, near to choking. It had grown in childhood, when he was the only one his sisters had. Grimly, he tapped the spoon, watching fat brown drops of coffee fall to the pool below, fighting memories of a cruel and brutal man.
    His instincts told him she was in deep trouble. But what had his instincts ever got him? The last time he’d stepped into someone’s life like this, it had ended up costing him nearly everything.
    Leave it alone.
    That would be the smart thing. Unfortunately, smart never seemed to enter into many of his decisions. Impulsively, he asked Roxanne, “What time does the bus come in?”
    “About ten or eleven, I think.”
    He nodded. Probably wasn’t any other way out of town for Mattie. Maybe he could still catch her.
    And maybe he ought to listen to sense just once in his life. Mattie herself had made it plain she wanted him to mind his own business.
    He didn’t like trouble. There ought to be a limit, after all, to how much trouble one man had to manage in one lifetime.
    As he argued with himself, two men came in and sat at the counter. One was tall, redheaded, with the freckled, wholesome good looks of a popsicle man. The other, though just as well groomed, carried a faintly greasy aura. His hooded eyes scanned the room. Both men wore city ideas of camping gear: chinos and flannel shirts with creases in the sleeve sharp enough to cut bread. Zeke looked at their boots. Clean soles.
    They made small talk with the waitress, Cora, an older woman who filled in only on the main waitress’s day off. Redhead ordered a cup of coffee and raved about the beauty of the area in a hearty tone. Zeke couldn’t say why the man’s praise rang false, but his nerves prickled.
    Warily, he shifted on the swivel stool and glanced through the plate-glass window at the front of the diner, looking for the car the pair had driven. A fancy El Camino, not a rental.
    It had Kansas plates.
    Affecting carelessness, Zeke turned back and waved for a refill on his coffee. Redhead kept talking. “You know,” he told Cora, “we’re not really on a pleasure trip. We’ve been looking for someone…my sister. Maybe you’ve seen her.”
    Zeke lifted his cup, keeping his eyes on the pass-out bar as if what they said made no difference to him.
    “You got a picture?” Cora asked.
    “Sure do. Right here.” He pulled out his wallet.
    Zeke glanced over, feigning idle curiosity. Redhead wore a guileless expression, a smile so innocent it practically shone. The picture he tugged from a cellophane sleeve was too small for Zeke to see from three stools over.
    “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Redhead said.