A Scandalous Melody by Linda Conrad Read Free Book Online Page B

shoes.
    Trying to slow down the inevitable, she took a long, deep sip of brandy. Her hand was trembling, but she wasn’t afraid. Kate just didn’t want Chase to know how badly he was getting to her. After years of dreaming about his touch and his kiss, she desperately wanted to lose this game. But she didn’t want him to know his advantage. Her blood and her brain were sizzling by simply being this close to him.
    They were sitting on the oriental rug at the foot of the massive hearth in the formal parlor of her ancestral home. Chase lit the fire to dispel the chill, and had insisted on candlelight and after-dinner drinks for their poker game.
    She lowered her eyes and took one more sip, letting the warmth of the smooth liquid roll down her throat. But when she finally looked up, he was watching her with a wicked gleam and a shadowed expression. Cruel secrets entwined about them like a swamp full of tangled kudzu.
    Chase dealt another hand. The cards lay facedown at her place. She could hear them silently call her name, taunting her to turn them up and learn her fate.
    â€œYour action, Kate.”
    Finally she forced herself to pick up her hand. She knew in an instant it was a winner—a full house, jacks high.
    â€œWha…” She cleared her throat and reminded herself to keep a poker face. “What stakes did you have in mind this time, Chase? There’s nothing much left for me to wager except the dress and my underwear.”
    â€œThe dress will do,” he said with a lazy drawl.
    â€œFine. But if I win I want your promise to consider letting Shelby and the baby stay in the guest cottage.”
    â€œYou’re not much on bluffing, chère. Have a good hand, do you? Remind me to teach you someday how to keep a straight face over a decent hand.
    â€œBut for now,” he added with a slow grin. “Let’s see what you’ve got. I’ll call.”
    It was time to lay out her cards. She quietly fanned them open before her, trying hard not to gloat.
    Until…Chase soberly turned over his cards and Kate felt her stomach jump and begin doing backflips.
    â€œFour kings?” she groaned in amazement. Stunned by his outrageous good fortune, Kate sat there immobile and stared at the cards.
    Reality hit her all too suddenly when she felt Chase reach over to lightly finger one of her dress’s straps. Shocked by the warm, erotic sensation of his hands on her bare skin, Kate gasped and drew away. Then she cursed herself as an idiot. Draw away? When this was what she wanted, after all?
    â€œI won that dress fair and square,” Chase said in a ragged whisper. “But I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. You can trust me not to hurt you.”
    â€œOh, Chase,” she mumbled past an unexpected lump in her throat. “Those are the very first words you ever said to me. Do you remember?”
    She glanced over at him just as a drape of moonlight fell across his face, revealing hard features and a tense jawline. “That was in another lifetime, Kate. Things have changed.”
    Not for her they hadn’t. “I remember being ten years old like it was yesterday.” The memory burned into her soul. “My mother had just…run away… And when wediscovered she’d meant to go for good, my father simply shrugged and said ‘good riddance to bad trash.’ I never forgave him for that…never.”
    â€œYou were a pretty tough cookie back then,” Chase agreed. “You got it into your head to leave town, too.”
    Chase’s voice began to mellow as he moved back into the shadows out of her sight. “I remember the scrawny dark-haired kid with the chip on her shoulder who wandered way out to the wrong side of town and then got lost. You were all full of fight and ready to conquer the world.”
    â€œI wasn’t lost,” she said with a smile of memory. “Just spitting mad. But you and