Read Online If Winter Comes by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online

story,”
she said for the second time, to the second person, that week.
     
    “He wasn’t much of a
husband,” he said with a strange bitterness. “Don’t get your hopes up in that
direction, either.”
     
    She stood up. “My
personal life is my own business.”
     
    “That’s what you
think.” He sipped his coffee. “Check out White. You’ll see.”
     
    She turned on her heel
and left him there. Late that afternoon, she took her wealth of bits and pieces
to Edwards and requested that he give it to the paper’s attorneys and see if
they could force the city attorney to release the airport land purchase
records.
     
     
     
    Bryan Moreland’s farm
was like a picture postcard. Well-kept grounds, white-fenced paddocks, silver
silos, a red barn with white trim, and a farmhouse with a sprawling front porch
and urns that must have been full of flowers in the spring and summer.
     
    Mrs. Brodie grinned
from ear to ear when Moreland brought Carla in and introduced her. The buxom
old woman obviously approved, and the table she set for lunch was evidence of
it. Carla ate until her stomach hurt, and Mrs. Brodie was still trying to press
helpings of apple cobbler on her.
     
    Moreland helped her
escape into his study, where a fire was blazing in the hearth. It was a dreary
day outside, drizzling rain and cold. But the den, with its Oriental rug and
sedate dark furniture, was cozy. She stared at the portrait above the white
mantel curiously. It was a period painting, and the man in it looked vaguely
like Bryan Moreland.
     
    “Is he a relative?” she
asked.
     
    He tossed two big, soft
cushions down on the floor in front of the hearth and stretched out with his
hands under his head. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied lazily. “He was my
grandmother’s lover.”
     
    She blushed, and he
laughed.
     
    “And the picture hangs
in here?” she asked, aghast.
     
    “He’s something of a
family legend,” he replied. “He’d be damned uncomfortable in the closet. Come
here,” he added with a sensuous look in his dark eyes as he gestured toward the
pillow next to his.
     
    She hesitated, drawn by
the magnetism of his big body in the well-fitted brown trousers and pale yellow
velour shirt, but wary of what he might expect of her.
     
    His dark eyes took in
the length of her body, lingering on the plunging V-neck of her white sweater,
tracing her dark slacks down to her booted feet.
     
    “If we make love,” he
said quietly, “I won’t let it go too far. Is that what you’re afraid of,
Carla?”
     
    She caught her breath.
He seemed to read her mind. She only nodded, lost for words.
     
    His eyes searched hers.
“Then, come on.”
     
    She eased down beside
him, curling her arms around her drawn-up knees with the pillow at her back.
“Are we?” she asked huskily.
     
    He traced the line of
her spine with deft, confident fingers. “Are we what?” he asked deeply.
     
    “Going to make love,”
she managed shakily.
     
    “That depends on you,
country mouse,” he said matter-of-factly, and he removed his caressing hand.
     
    She half-turned and
looked down at him. His eyes were dark, smouldering, and there was no smile to
ease the intensity of his piercing gaze.
     
    “If you want it, come
here,” he said gruffly.
     
    She didn’t even think.
She went down into his outstretched arms as if she were going home, as if she’d
waited all her life for a big, husky, dark man to hold out his arms to her.
     
    He crushed her against
his broad chest and lay just holding her as the fire crackled and popped
cheerfully in the dimly lit room.
     
    “It’s been a long time
for me, Carla,” he said in a strange, gruff tone. “Kisses may not be enough.”
     
    She felt her body
stiffen against him. “I can’t…”
     
    “Don’t start freezing
on me,” he said at her ear. “I’m not going to throw you over my shoulder and
beat a path to my bedroom with you.”
     
    “But you said…”