Read Online Within My Heart by Tamera Alexander - Free Book Online

stand to lose everything I’ve worked for all these years. All I’ve got is tied up in this store. My goal is to make sure my wife is well taken care of when I’m gone, and I aim to see that goal met.”
    The clamor of footsteps sounded from down the hallway, and Ben cleared his throat. His demeanor noticeably brightened.
    Not yet finished with their conversation, Rand realized that his patient apparently was. “I will not lie to your wife,” he said quietly.
    “And I’m not asking you to,” Ben answered. “All I’m asking for is time to get my business in order. And to prepare Lyda for the truth. There’s a way to tell a woman something, and a way not to, Doc. I want to do this the right way.”
    Rand stared ahead, uncomfortable with the way things were being left. Lyda deserved to know the truth about her husband’s condition, but Ben needed to be the one to tell her. With reluctance, Rand finally nodded, and Ben’s features relaxed in gratitude and relief.
    Lyda rounded the corner, glasses of tea balanced on a tray, and with two familiar redheads in tow. The boys’ expressions held apprehension, revealing they’d been told about Ben’s circumstance, at least as much as they could grasp at their age. Rand stood and readied himself for their mother’s return, determined to deliver a flawless apology to her this time.
    But Rachel Boyd was nowhere to be seen.

6
    T he second-story bedroom above the mercantile was tidy enough, even with boxes and crates stacked high on a far wall, but a hint of dust and disuse tainted the air. Rachel deposited the fresh bedding in the rocker by the door and crossed to the window. Bracing her hands on either side, she gave the window a good push. It refused to budge. On her third try the paint-peeled wood finally relented and edged up with creaking complaint.
    Brushing the dust from her hands, she looked out across the town of Timber Ridge and welcomed the chilled breeze.
    She breathed deep, willing a calm she didn’t feel, despite having time to regain her composure since Rand Brookston’s thorough dressing-down. She fingered a crack at the corner of the window. Dressing-down was probably too harsh a term for his comment. But still, her body heated again just thinking about the encounter.
    Everything she’d suspected about the “good doctor” was true— despite what James had told her. Her brother had a knack for reading people, but he’d read this one wrong. People revealed their true natures under pressure, and Rand Brookston had certainly revealed his. He was short-tempered, demanding, and had an arrogance about him that all but dared a person to contradict him. Just like her father.
    She stripped the bed, yanking the rumpled sheets off and shaking the pillows out of their cases.
    Rand Brookston was handsome, she guessed, in an aristocratic sort of way, which she’d never personally found appealing. And despite his explanation, she still couldn’t erase the image of him opening the bedroom door at the brothel from her mind. The guilty look he wore, the provocative gleam in the eyes of the young woman lying on the bed.
    And there was something else. . . .
    On certain occasions when she’d been in his company, she’d caught him staring at her—as he’d been doing today. She could be wrong, but she’d gotten the feeling there might be interest on his part, and interest was the last thing she wanted to encourage. When she’d married, she’d done her best to choose a man who was the exact opposite of her father, and that relationship with Thomas had been the sweetest of her life.
    But one thing she was interested in knowing about Rand Brookston was how he’d restarted Ben Mullins’s heart. If indeed that’s what he’d done. Doctors often overstated their roles in healing, taking credit where little to none was due. One of the less-than-desirable character traits of her father, among other traits she didn’t care to dredge from memory.
    But if Rand Brookston