Read Online The Legend of Smuggler's Cave by Paula Graves - Free Book Online

turning him toward her until he had no choice but to look at her.
    There wasn’t pity in her gaze, as he’d feared. She looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and, strangely, a hint of understanding.
    “I want to bury the Cortland organization once and for all,” he answered after gathering his wits. “I want them gone from these hills for good.”
    “Because you think it’s the only thing that will make folks around here forget your family scandal and pull the lever for you in the voting booth.”
    He shook her hand from his arm and turned away in anger. Not because she’d insulted him but because she was partially right. It might not be his only motive for wanting to see justice done, but it was a big part of it. Maybe too big a part of it.
    “I’m not sayin’ I won’t help you,” she said as the silence filling the space between them threatened to smother him. “I just want to be clear on our motives. You want to be elected County Prosecutor. I want to protect my son, and if you’re right about Johnny, I want to make right what he did. And I wouldn’t mind solving his murder so my son won’t have to wonder about all that in years to come.”
    “I don’t think it will be enough to save my ambitions,” he said quietly. “But I want the job anyway.”
    “You could make more money in private practice,” she murmured.
    He shot her a baleful look, unable to stop his reaction. “I don’t care about the money.”
    “Everybody cares about the money. I know I do.” She waved her hand around the cabin. “You think I live here because I like a drafty cabin with a sometimes-leaky roof? You think I can my own food and kill my own game because I’m part of some organic whole-food locavore movement?” She shook her head. “I live here because it’s paid for. I grow and kill my own food because it’s cheaper that way, and it allows me to put money away so Logan can go to college and get the hell out of these mountains if that’s what he wants. Money matters.”
    He rubbed his jaw, wondering how many different ways he could make this woman despise him in one short night. “I have all the money I need. You must know that. I have the luxury of choosing a job because it satisfies something more than my bank account.”
    “Lucky you.” She turned away, crossing to the sofa and sitting next to her sleeping son. She gently circled her palm over his back, lowering her voice. “I don’t have that luxury. I have to work so we can eat. And I can’t afford to put him in day care. Aunt Jenny won’t be able to watch him for a while, so you see, I’m in a really desperate situation at the moment.”
    He waited, realizing she was on the verge of making a decision. Anything he said at this point would probably hurt his chances of getting what he wanted. And though she might not believe it, one of the things he wanted more than anything in the world was to protect her and her son from going through another night like tonight.
    She looked up at him. “I would do anything to protect Logan.”
    “I know.”
    “I know you know. That’s why you’re offering to take us in. You know I’d never even consider it otherwise.”
    He waited, keeping silent. The moment stretched to the breaking point.
    “I’ll do it.” She looked down at her little boy. “But I have some conditions of my own.”
    He moved slowly toward her, settling on the end of the scuffed pine coffee table in front of the sofa. “What conditions?”
    “You let me pay rent.”
    “It’s not necessary.”
    “I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”
    Pride, he thought, not without admiration. “I need your cooperation, not your money. It’s far more valuable to me.”
    Her gaze snapped up to meet his. “You’ll have my cooperation. Matter of fact, I insist on being part of your investigation.”
    “You already have a job.”
    “I have time off, too. And I’ll spend what I can of that helping you with your investigation. But I