Read Online Joker's Wild by Sandra Chastain - Free Book Online Page A

Allison swept his hand from her face and struggled to her feet, a tight grimace twisting her face.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” Joker reached down and steadied her, sliding his hand around her waist.
    “I’m moving out of your house immediately.”
    “No, you’re not.” He continued to hold her as he repeated his denial. “That’s the last thing you’re going to do. Stop and think about it for a minute. I promised your grandmother that you wouldn’t be told until she was able to explain it to you. If you leave here, she’ll want to know why, and I don’t think she needs to worry unnecessarily, not now that she’s turned the corner of her illness.”
    “How will she know I’m gone?”
    “This is a small town. It would be all over Pretty Springs in half an hour. No, you can’t go anywhere. Once you’ve regained the use of your knee, your grandmother ought to be well on the road to recovery, and then we’ll tell her the full extent of your injury.”
    “But I can’t stay in the house knowing that it’s yours. Don’t you see? I just couldn’t.”
    “You’ll have to, Allison.”
    “No. I’ll move into the carriage house, and I’ll pay you rent.”
    “I will accept from you only what your grandmother would take from me.”
    “And what was that?”
    “I had to work for my board. Are you game?”
    “I don’t know what you think I can do to earn my board.”
    “You can let me help you walk again. You can stay here and let your grandmother see you get well. It’ll be all right, Beauty. I know how you’re hurting. I’m here, and I care. I really do. You don’t have to handle it alone.”
    Suddenly Allison sagged against him. The tears came, tears she’d held back for so long. She cried for herself, for Gran, for the uncertainty of what was to come. All the while, she absorbed the warmth of the man holding her. The shock of what she’d just learned gradually evaporated, and she felt a faint flutter of hope.
    “Why?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are you really doing this?” Her voice was shaking, and Joker knew that she’d crossed over the line that divided fear of what had happened from awareness of him as a man. He just wasn’t sure that she knew it, and it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to tilt her head back and kiss her deeply.
    “Because I care about you, Allison Josey. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s because when I came here I’d lost too many people that I cared about, and your grandmother took me in.”
    “It’s easy to care when you aren’t the one who’s just lost everything.”
    “No. I lost everything long ago. I guess I’m trying to buy it back.”
    “I’m sorry, Joker. That was unkind of me. I don’t know anything about you or your past.”
    “Talking about the past isn’t easy. Even my brothers don’t understand.” His voice trailed off. Maybe she’dtrust his motives, understand how he felt, if he told her. Maybe he’d understand too.
    He caressed her hair with his hand as he talked. “My father was the town drunk. When my sister was only a baby, my mother left us.”
    “I’m sorry, Joker.”
    “She didn’t live very long. I think she found out that her new life wasn’t what she’d thought it would be. After she left, Pop seemed to give up. We’d always lived in housing projects, trailer parks. Toward the end, after my brothers Jack and King were away, we lived in the back of our station wagon.”
    He paused for a long second before going on. “Finding your grandmother and this house was like finding something I’d lost. And then you came. I care about you, Allison Josey. I felt something the moment we met. Can’t we leave it at that for now? I don’t know what will happen, or where we’ll go from here, but if I could change things and give the estate back to you, I’d do it.”
    “You would? What if I offered to buy it back at the same price you paid?”
    “I’d hate to give it up, but I would.”
    She knew that