Read Online Spring River Valley: The Spring Collection (Boxed Set) by Clarice Wynter - Free Book Online Page B

molded to his. “I thought you’d left me.”
    She shook her head. “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
    “What’s wrong?” He pushed strands of dark hair away from her eyes. In the moonlight filtering through the window, her skin was like porcelain, her eyes midnight blue. A sudden pressure in his chest made him hungry for a deep breath of air. What had she done to him? He rubbed the spot above his breastbone, suddenly worried she’d tell him she regretted what they’d done.
    “I was just thinking about tonight and how lucky you all were. What happened could have been…”
    “But it wasn’t. It’s okay.”
    “Audrey said she worries about Max. He goes to all these… incidents that Chad covers for the newspaper, and they’re dangerous.”
    “Yeah, sometimes they are. He got hit by a Buick a few months ago…you remember the car that got stuck on the drawbridge?”
    She nodded. “And tonight Quinn. I was just letting myself wonder how I’d have felt if it was you.”
    He cupped her face in his hands and made her look at him. “It wasn’t. Don’t think like that or you’ll never sleep again. Come back to bed. You took care of me when I needed you. Now it’s my turn.”
    “Oh? And what are you going to do to make me stop imagining the worst?”
    He smiled and scooped her up in his arms. “I’m going to make your forget your own name. How’s that?”
    “I dare you to try.”
    “I’ll take that dare,” he said and he carried her, giggling, into the bedroom to make good on his promise.

Chapter Ten
     
     
    At nine a.m. the next morning, Evie sat at her desk, lost in thought. She’d woken up in Tanner’s arms, and she’d still be there if he hadn’t gotten a call from his commander asking him to go to the station. The warmth of his parting kiss still lingered on her lips, and she smiled every time she thought about how they’d spent the night.
    She couldn’t wait to call him, but she didn’t want to interrupt any official business, so instead she had to find a way to concentrate on her work. She had to call Mrs. Moriarty to reschedule her interview and e-mail Max with the date and time of the official ribbon-cutting ceremony and the Women’s Auxiliary Bachelor Auction, which would be raising funds for some specialized equipment for the new wing.
    Details, details. She’d just opened up her e-mail when Janet appeared and plopped the morning edition down in front of her. “Read me this headline.”
    Confused, Evie pulled the paper closer. There was a shot of a two-story home in flames, and the image stabbed at Evie’s memory. The collapsed porch where Quinn Preston had almost lost his life was clearly visible. “ Stanton house fire leaves three hospitalized .”
    Janet nodded curtly and tossed a national paper on top of the Herald . “Now read this headline.”
    Evie sighed. The take from the national paper was decidedly different. “ Senator and mistress rescued from fiery suicide pact . Oh, wow.”
    “Do you see the difference?” Janet tapped the pointed toe of her designer shoe expectantly.
    “Well, yes. Our headline doesn’t read like a cheap tabloid.”
    Janet crossed her arms. “My dear, you’ve missed the point. This headline sells papers. Tons of them. Our headline reads like local news.”
    “It is local news.”
    “Evie. This is a disgrace. Every paper on the East Coast is running versions of this suicide pact story. A married senator who ran on a platform of family values is found unconscious in the bedroom of a woman half his age to whom he’s not married. The reports state that she never even told the rescue workers he was in the house. They’re insinuating she wanted him to die in the fire and that she had caused the gas leak herself.”
    “That’s not true. Tanner said she told him the man was upstairs.” The words came out before Evie could stop them. She closed her eyes, praying Janet hadn’t actually heard her.
    Of course, she had.