Read Online The Heart of a Stranger by Sheri Whitefeather - Free Book Online

in the gut. He’d used that naiveté against her today.He’d baited her into a sensual conversation, thinking how sweet and innocent she was for falling for his game.
    Did that put him in the same take-advantage league as Gunther?
    â€œEventually I learned that my husband was a criminal. A thief, a drug addict. He was hooked on crystal meth.”
    â€œSpeed,” Juan put in.
    â€œYes. But he convinced me he was clean.”
    â€œAnd he wasn’t?”
    â€œNo. He’d been stealing TVs and car stereos from the warehouse where he worked to support his habit.” She made a bitter sound. “I was grateful that he’d finally landed a steady job. I didn’t have a clue.” She shook her head. “I should have known he was still using. He was so moody. Nice one day, angry and belligerent the next.”
    I’m not like him, Juan thought. I’m not.
    She sighed. “Soon after I discovered I was pregnant, Gunther got caught and the warehouse pressed charges.”
    â€œWas it his first offense?”
    â€œNo. But I didn’t know he’d been in jail before.” Lourdes frowned. “He’d conned me right from the start. But at that point, I decided I wasn’t going to stand by and let him destroy my life. I had a baby to consider.” Her voice turned soft. “Two babies, I learned later. Anyway, I came home, and my grandfather welcomed me back with open arms.”
    Juan shifted in his chair. “So how did Gunther die?”
    â€œA few weeks after he was incarcerated, he was killed in a jailhouse brawl. I had just gone to see anattorney about filing for divorce, about getting him out of my life for good.”
    â€œBut one of the other inmates got to him first.”
    She nodded. “It’s over, and I have my babies now. My sweet little girls.”
    â€œThey are sweet.” He pictured them asleep in their puffy pink beds, then felt a strange chill in his bones.
    A warning? A message?
    Juan shook away the feeling. But a moment later, it returned.
    He gazed at the yard, and a disturbing thought assaulted him.
    What if he really was like Gunther? What if he was some sort of criminal?
    Lourdes’s voice cut into his fears. “Thank you for being so kind to my daughters. They’re quite enamored of you.”
    The chill faded, and Juan relaxed. “I’m enamored of them, too.”
    â€œGunther was upset when he discovered I was pregnant. He wanted me to have an abortion. He said the timing was wrong, that we couldn’t afford to start a family. I guess he was worried that buying baby bottles and diapers would cut into his drug money.”
    â€œGunther was a jerk.” And I’m nothing like him, Juan thought. Not in any shape or form. No way was he a criminal, a man who abused the law.
    He was just a regular guy, a lonely guy with distorted memories and a fondness for the family who’d taken him in when he’d needed someone to care.
    He turned to look at Lourdes at the same moment she turned to look at him. She smiled, and he thanked God for the blessings he’d been given.
    The company of a beautiful rancher and her children. An old Comanche woman. A gum-snapping teenager. Home-cooked meals, buttered popcorn and movies about mermaids.
    The chance, he thought, to appreciate life and live each day as if it were his last.

Five
    L ourdes stood next to Cindy O’Neil, an old college friend who’d stopped by the ranch to try to persuade her to go into town later for a drink. But at the moment neither Lourdes nor Cindy engaged in conversation. They remained quiet, sheltered in the breezeway of the barn, watching Juan like two sex-starved voyeurs.
    He worked in the sun, replacing broken rails on a corral fence. He’d already removed his T-shirt and draped it over a post, leaving his muscled back exposed and glistening with sweat. A pair of Wranglers rode low on his hips, hugging his rear.
    â€œNo