Beckett's Convenient Bride by Dixie Browning Read Free Book Online

kettle on and call to see if today’s chicken soup’s ready. Jeff makes it fresh every day.”
    Her voice had a soothing quality, which was surprising coming from a woman who was at worst a dangerous psychotic, at best, a compassionate flake. “There’s an afghan on the back of the couch. When you’re feverish, you probably don’t need to be chilled. Or is it the other way around?”
    She left, muttering something about starve-a-cold, feed-a-fever, but by that time Carson was down and nearly out.A moment later he could sense her presence, even though his eyes were closed. Don’t talk any more, he wanted to say, it hurts my head.
    â€œI won’t talk any more, you probably just want to sleep. Why don’t I go get my car now, and I’ll stop by the restaurant and bring you some chicken soup before I go to work.”
    He felt a drift of something light and wooly over his body. She hadn’t tried to remove his coat, but she tugged at one of his boots briefly before giving up. He could have told her that there was a knack to pulling off boots, and she didn’t have it. At that point, he didn’t care.
    Bye-bye, angel. Wake me up in a few weeks, all right?

Three
    T his is the right thing to do, Kit thought in an effort to reassure herself. After running the man down, she could hardly walk off and leave him there. He was injured, possibly even ill. It was only natural to be uneasy—any normal person would be uneasy.
    All right, so she was more than uneasy, she was scared stiff. But she was still functioning, and under the circumstances that was pretty cool.
    With shaking fingers, she dialed the Crab House. “Look, Jeff—I might be a few minutes late coming on shift, but I’m going to stop by first, and could you please have a quart of chicken soup ready to go?” She listened, darting quick glances toward the living room. “Uh-huh—that’s right, he found me.”
    Someone had been asking questions about her? And she’d been fool enough to drag him home with her.Maybe her grandfather was right—she was a clear case of arrested development.
    But the man had known her full name. That had brought her up short, and before she could come to her senses curiosity had outweighed fear, and now she was stuck with him.
    Fortunately, he was out like a light, as she simply wasn’t up to the job of dragging him out and dumping him beside the road.
    Raking her hair from her forehead, she thrust her car keys in her pocket and hurried down the path, wondering if she’d left enough room for Ladybug. Without thinking, she’d parked the Yukon in the place she usually parked her own car. Second thoughts, and third ones, dogged her steps as she hurried along the road. How could she have walked out and left a strange man asleep in her house at a time like this?
    Even under normal circumstances Kit never invited men to sleep in her house. Sleeping over implied involvement, and Kit had a whole series of rules concerning getting involved with a man, starting with No Way and ending with Just Say No.
    Growing up in a family that was everything proper on the outside and totally dysfunctional behind closed doors had left scars that she was still trying to heal—or if not to heal, at least to hide.
    In other words, she mocked silently, you’re a chip off the old block.
    Early on, it hadn’t been quite so evident that once her father left for his office, the whole house seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Back then, her mother would wait until just before dinner to take the first drink. During the day they would go places, just the two of them. Movies, museums, shopping…to the zoo. On rainy days theymight play Fish or cut paper dolls from old fashion magazines. She’d loved that, making up stories about each one.
    For Kit’s eighth birthday her mother had given her a bride doll. In later years Kit always connected the doll in her mind