Read Online Love's First Bloom by Delia Parr - Free Book Online

controversy surrounding her father; indeed, from everything he had read, the minister had never allowed her to actively participate in his work at all.
    Yet the more he closed the distance between the two of them, the more he worried that Capt. Grant might have sent him here on a fool’s errand, designed solely to keep Jake from returning to work in the city. Even if this young woman, known locally as Widow Malloy, matched the description he had been given of Ruth Livingstone, he could not disregard the existence of the young child she claimed was hers, a claim he was not able to prove or disprove. The woman he was approaching looked very annoyed, if not defiant.
    He was ready to turn back, admit he had made a costly mistake by coming here, and return to New York City on the morning tide to investigate there further, when she relaxed her stance and smiled sweetly at him.
    “Now look at you,” he murmured under his breath. Heartened and intrigued by her transformation into the shy young woman he expected to find, he also found the freckles on her cheekbones uncommonly appealing. Fully confident now that he had chosen the right ruse to penetrate whatever shield she chose to hide her real identity, he had to remind himself not to rush forward and instead hold steady to the persona he had adopted.
    He kept his pace slow until he finally stepped out from the shadows into the full glare of the sun, only to see the woman undergo yet another transformation. Although she nervously twisted her hands together, her shoulders snapped back as if someone had reminded her that she had a backbone. Her tentative smile drooped into a frown of disappointment that almost instantly tightened into disapproval, giving him just a hint of the rather annoyed woman she had been only moments ago.
    When her gaze finally lit with surprise, he immediately pressed his advantage. Leaning his full weight on the cane, he frowned. “I believe you’re trespassing. Please leave,” he said firmly, hoping his words sounded harsh enough to get her full attention, but not gruff enough to actually frighten her into leaving.
    “Y-you’re not old at all. Y-you’re actually quite y-young,” she stammered, as if she could not believe her own eyes.
    “And you’re still trespassing. Please leave,” he repeated.
    He watched her pale gray eyes darken with the same embarrassment that turned her cheeks bright pink. “I was told the Canfields abandoned this property years ago and that no one lived here.”
    He cocked a brow. “At best, you’ve been misinformed, which proves to be decidedly unfortunate today for me.”
    “And for me as well,” she murmured so softly he almost missed hearing her.
    “I expected the news that I’d rented the property for the next several months would spread rather quickly in a village that wasn’t even large enough to warrant being called a town. I came here specifically to be alone while I finish recuperating. With some privacy—which I will not have if you venture back here again and which I most assuredly will not have if others follow you,” he said and winced for effect. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the cabin so I can rest, which is exactly what I would have been doing right now if you hadn’t shown up here.”
    He paused, looked down at the rocks she had set into a pile, and shook his head. “I can’t even begin to fathom why you’d be harvesting such ordinary rocks, but I’m quite certain you’ll be able to find what you need elsewhere.”
    After drawing in a long breath, he turned around to walk back to the cabin. He took several slow steps, but she did not even try to argue that his assumption that she was looking for rocks was completely ridiculous. He was disappointed, more with his own inability to lure her into a prolonged conversation than he was with her for having far less backbone than she needed if she expected to outwit the many reporters looking for her.
    Ruth held very, very