Read Online The Midwife's Secret by Kate Bridges - Free Book Online

I’ve wired the information across the country. The last sighting of him was in the coal mines just east of here. He’s disappeared, but we’ll flush him out.”
    Tom pulled in a long breath.
    “I’ve had to ask some questions around town for Finnigan’s last whereabouts, but I don’t think anyone’s suspicious.”
    “Good.”
    “About Clarissa…”
    “She’s not in Calgary, is she?”
    Graham shook his head. “Can’t seem to locate her. She never showed up there. Bought a train ticket but never used it.”
    Tom snorted in disgust. He started painting again, coating the stool’s legs.
    Graham pulled out a chair, sat and scratched his curly blond sideburn. “Why aren’t you surprised?”
    Tom’s spirits sank. “What would you say if I told you I think they disappeared together?”
    “Aw, hell.”
    Betrayed. Tom swallowed past the hard lump in his throat. What was worse? Losing his business to Finnigan? Or losing his woman to the man? Tom had been betrayed by two of the people he trusted most.
    Clarissa wasn’t the dignified woman he thought she was. How could he have been involved with a woman who tore off with his partner?
    Amanda wasn’t like her. She was as far removed from the word conniving as one could get. Amanda didn’t have the easy life that Clarissa had. Amanda was a tender, widowed woman trying to survive on her own. She didn’t have anything to do with Finnigan’s scam, either, because he’d overcharged her.
    Amanda was an honest woman, and right about now, he held the virtue of honesty highest on his list.
    “About Amanda Ryan.”
    “Yeah?” Tom held his breath.
    “I did some checking. You were right. She’s got a hell of a secret. She’s not widowed. The woman’s divorced.”

Chapter Four
    D ivorced. Tom scowled as he hitched the mules to the stump-puller on Amanda’s property the next morning. She hadn’t been waiting for him as she usually was—which made him happy—but stepped out of the shack and into the thick forest thirty minutes after he, Donald and Pa arrived.
    They’d all lied to him. Finnigan, Clarissa, then her.
    “Nice day, isn’t it?” Amanda’s welcoming smile and pretense of a blush sickened him. A shaft of light struck her high cheekbones beneath the bonnet. Wasn’t she an innocent? A naive divorcée, blushing at the man who’d brazenly kissed her hand the day before. Damn her anyway, for getting to him.
    His muscles clenched. “Good for working,” he muttered.
    He turned his back, not caring how rude he was, and secured one of two wooden columns to the mule’s harness. The contraption looked like an inverted V over the stump. With a long, sauntering stride, pulling his hat closer to his brow to shade himself from the sun, he left her standing there and joined Donald by the other mule. The animals would walk the columns in a circle, turning the screw andchains attached to the stump, thereby pulling out the root. Tom would finish his work as quickly as he could, and in five weeks time he’d say good riddance to Mrs. Amanda Ryan.
    Amanda had looked into his eyes and stole his affections— stole —under false pretenses of him feeling sorry for a widow. And her grandma wasn’t any better. How the two of them must have laughed that day when he’d first met Miss Clementine and they’d discussed widowhood. He’d made a fool of himself for falling for Amanda’s fabrications.
    Persistent, dressed in her old flannel, Amanda slid her slender figure next to his broad one, dressed in denim. The demure smile he’d found so endearing yesterday looked like one of deceit today. What did the woman want from him? A friendly conversation? More kisses? Although she’d pulled back yesterday, maybe she’d changed her mind and thought he’d make a good catch. Maybe he’d be able to support her down the road!
    “What happened to your two big draft horses?” she asked in a friendly tone that he found irritating.
    “I sold them,” he snapped. “I can rent