Escape to Morning by Susan May Warren Read Free Book Online

nightshirt and wool socks, channel surfing from her double bed. Hunger still gnawed at the outside reaches of her stomach, but she ignored it. Better hungry than in stomach-curdling company.
    Obviously she hadn’t totally run Cowpoke Masterson out of her head. And if she was honest, he wasn’t completely disgusting. Not with his deceptively sweet smile. The way he helped her rub down Missy and settle her in the pickup had charmed his way too far into the soft spaces of her heart. She could hear the cowboy in his words, a soft Western twang that spoke of broad skies, lazy days, slow laughter, and sardonic humor.
    But he’d all but lied to her.
    Tricked her.
    So he’d never actually admitted to being a cop … he hadn’t jumped to correct her, had he?
    She scrolled through the television channels without really seeing, her chest burning. Jerk . Just when she was starting to enjoy his company. Or rather wanted to enjoy his company. She hadn’t had a real, I’m-interested smile from someone of the opposite gender for so long she’d forgotten what it felt like.
    No, it hadn’t been a real smile. Reality, Dannette . Her throat thickened. A reporter. She should have seen the ink on his fingers, recognized the predatory look on his face, alerted to the sound of sniffing as he leaned on the table and stared at her with those pretty, deceitful brown eyes.
    She’d had her share of run-ins with reporters, thank you, and had no desire to get close to anyone who dug out secrets and splattered them across the front page of her hometown rag. Or wherever.
    She blamed exhaustion for not seeing through his charm. No man with that much natural rough-edged charisma would ever give her so much as a two-second glance. His type, the ones with ego and eyes that could make a girl forget her name, weren’t attracted to the plain Jane, unruly hair Dannette types.
    They wanted makeup. Beauty. An easy smile that didn’t look too long at the interior. They wanted a Dani . Her defenses should have pricked the moment he made that shopping jab. She should have smelled the suaveness radiating off him.
    He saw her only as the inside track to a hot story.
    She sighed as despair deflated her anger. She shouldn’t blame Will. Maybe God was simply intervening. The Almighty knew her history with men. The two that preceded Reporter Will had been SAR types who lived for adventure and put adrenaline before romance. Sorta like she did. A gal with a career traipsing around the world risking her neck to rescue others had no business cultivating or even wishing for strong arms and a willing ear to come home to.
    Any such hero would need to know her back-story, and frankly, she wasn’t giving that up. Not without a crowbar to her heart.
    She flicked to a rerun of a detective show and soon grew bored, her mind returning rebelliously to Will Masterson. She sunk into her pillow; her eyes grew gritty.
    â€œI’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He was leaning against his truck, hands in his leather jacket, a grin denting the dark goatee. “I didn’t know you were so sensitive about reporters.”
    Dannette whistled to her dog, but Missy seemed strangely absent. That fact niggled in the back of her brain, but she ignored it. The sky had turned a sickly green. “We should get inside.”
    He didn’t seem to hear her. His liquid eyes—dark and magnetic—reached out to her. “Why did you run away from me?”
    She opened her mouth, and suddenly Will Masterson morphed into a small blonde woman, slightly built, lines around her mouth. Her gentle hazel eyes held on to Dannette with a power that seemed otherworldly. A tear hung on her lash. “Why did you run away?” she said softly. Behind her, the sky darkened, a flicker of light, then thunder, low and rippling under Dannette’s skin.
    â€œI dunno,” Dannette whispered, but the words stuck like paste in her