Read Online King of the Mountain by Fran Baker - Free Book Online

would never happen again,” Carol said, still on the defensive. She raised a hand to her wounded face but didn’t touch it. “He even brought me a rose …”
    The hearts-and-flowers phase, Kitty thought cynically.
    “It’s like he’s two people,” Carol continued sadly. “The nice guy and the bad guy.”
    “They’re really the
same
guy, though.” Kitty didn’t want to push Carol into doing something she would regret, but she felt she had to confront her with the facts. Her life and the lives of her children were at stake. “You have to take both together, and you have to ask yourself if that’s what you want.”
    “I don’t know what I want.” Carol balled up her damp tissue and put into her pocket. “All I know is, the harder I try to make him happy, the more miserable he gets.”
    Dottie applied blusher to her cheeks with a practiced hand. “Why do women always feel responsible for making relationship work?”
    “Beats me.” Carol realized what she’d said and sighed. “Listen to me—practically asking for it.”
    The whistle blew, signaling the end of lunch break.
    “Already?” Dottie had finally gotten around to unwrapping her sandwich.
    “Time flies when you’re having fun,” Carol quipped as she headed for the exit.
    Dottie took a fast bite of her sandwich beforerewrapping it and tossing it back into her lunch box. “You comin’, Kitty?”
    “I’ll be along directly,” she promised, waving them on.
    Kitty was usually the first one back to work, but she dragged her feet today. Carol’s remark about the Blazer—and by inference, Ben—stung.
    Visions of his back and shoulder muscles rippling beneath his shirt as he shoveled coal rose unbidden to her mind. Closing her eyes, she recalled the feel of his finger tipping her chin up, his gentle touch eliciting a tingling sensation in her throat and breasts and lower body.
    His words the other morning in the café had touched her in a different way. A deeper way. His tone hadn’t held even the slightest suggestion of self-pity, but ever since, she’d been haunted by the idea of him eating alone.
    Granted, she and Jessie didn’t have dinner together every night. But they did share their hopes and dreams for the day, as well as a laugh or two, over breakfast every morning, and she couldn’t imagine—
    Kitty came out of her reverie with a bang. The blasting had started again, which meant she had a job to do.
    And just as well, she thought, picking up her pit helmet and lunch box. She’d spent almost half her life paying for one mistake. The last thing she needed was another man.
    * * *
    “Missed you at lunch break.”
    “Maybe you weren’t shooting straight.”
    Ben didn’t catch up with Kitty until the end of the shift, when she was running to catch the mantrap. He’d wanted to tell her about his car being ready, but her acerbic reply to his affable remark only fanned the coals of his frustration.
    A group of miners boarded the mantrap.
    He had forgotten now why he’d been looking for her and swung her around by an elbow. “Is it men in general or me in particular?”
    She didn’t bother to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. “We’re going to miss—”
    The door to the mantrap clanged closed.
    “I want to talk to you.” He still grasped her elbow—not hard, but with just enough pressure to keep her from getting lost in the new crowd gathering near the mantrap.
    She looked down at her arm, imprisoned by those sun-browned fingers that kept invading her dreams, then up at his incisive gray eyes and said calmly, “Let go of me.”
    The tension between them mounted to flash point—as dangerous as the swirling dust particles that could be ignited by a single spark.
    Peripherally aware that they were attracting attention, Ben dropped her arm, angry at himself now for letting his temper get the better of him.
    She backpedaled a step, out of arm’s reach. “What do you want?”
    “To tell you that my car