Read Online The Marriage Pact (Hqn) by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page A

commenced galloping in circles again, celebrating this new liberty.
    Tripp kept the grin plastered to his mouth as he reached the porch steps, climbed them, ready to offer the customary handshake.
    Instead, Jim put an arm around Tripp and held him close for a long moment before recovering enough to summon up another smile—probably no more genuine than Tripp’s—and to clear his throat. Jim’s pale blue eyes were watery when he clasped Tripp’s shoulder, held him away a little and muttered. “Let me look at you, boy.”
    Tripp couldn’t sustain the fake grin any longer; it had already hardened into a grimace, so he let it fall away, like a handful of pebbles clattering down the face of a cliff. “What’s the story, Dad?” he demanded quietly. “And don’t give me any of that John Wayne, man-of-few-words bullshit, either. Tell me what’s wrong. ”
    Jim sighed and pushed away from the pole to stand up straight. He swayed almost imperceptibly, and his hold on Tripp’s shoulder briefly tightened.
    “I reckon you have a right to know,” he allowed after a long time spent pondering. He gestured toward the gaping front door. “But we’re letting the flies in, standing out here like this, and, besides, I’d just as soon have this conversation inside the house, with a cup of hot coffee in front of me—if it’s all the same to you.”
    Tripp nodded tersely, willing to accept that much of a delay and no more, and wisely but barely refrained from taking hold of Jim’s arm and ushering him over the threshold.
    Pausing just inside, he whistled for Ridley, who ignored him completely, busy checking out one of the flower beds now.
    “Let the poor critter be,” Jim said in a kindly rasp. “He needs to breathe some fresh air and stretch his legs a bit.”
    Tripp hesitated, walking close behind his stepfather, ready to catch him if he stumbled. “But he could run off or something...”
    Jim, shuffling across the worn plank floors of the living room now, didn’t look back. “He’ll be fine, ”he replied. He gave another scratchy chuckle. “This isn’t the big city, son. If he runs off, he’ll come back. Anyhow, there’s not much traffic on the county road, let alone way out here, so it’s not as if he’s fixing to get himself run over by a garbage truck or one of those taxicabs.”
    In spite of what he’d guessed, and the dread of all he still didn’t know, Tripp laughed, a short, hoarse bark of a sound. “No, sir,” he countered. “This country’s as safe as a Sunday-school picnic—if you don’t mind a few wolves, coyotes, rattlesnakes and grizzly bears.”
    Jim shook his head, passing through the archway and into the dining room. “Been too long since you set foot on plain ol’ dirt,” he observed drily. “Living in Seattle all those years, surrounded by nothing but concrete and asphalt, why, it’s done something to your brain. Made a worrywart out of you.”
    Tripp smiled—this time for real. To Jim’s way of thinking, any community with a population over ten thousand was too big for its own good.
    Therefore, he didn’t bother to make a case for Seattle. Jim would only sigh and shake his head again. What Tripp didsay was, “The point is, I’m back to stay.”
    Jim paused in the open doorway to the kitchen, gripped the framework with one hand to steady himself, take a moment’s rest. “It’s about damn time, too,” he grumbled good-naturedly, squaring his bony shoulders and then, with a little too much effort, moving forward again.
    Tripp was relieved when his stepfather finally made it to the kitchen, crossed to the table and pulled out a chair to sit down.
    “I’ll get you that coffee,” Tripp said lightly. “In the meantime, start talking.”

Chapter Three
    J IM TOOK A while to catch his breath. He was pale under that perennial outdoorsman’s suntan of his, and he closed his eyes for a second, summoning strength. When he opened them again, he looked at Tripp with a kind of weary