Ghost Of A Chance (Harlequin Te(Bookos.org) by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

for six months.
    Julian Aries was like a wounded animal who would lash out at anyone
    who got too close. He needed time to heal his own wounds before a woman
    dared approach him to offer any kind of relationship. Even then she might
    find that he was incapable of real emotional commitment, let alone love.
    Everything she had ever told herself about Julian was still true. He was
    a loner, a man who might pursue a woman in order to satisfy his desire for
    her, but who would never ask for or want feminine comfort or gentle
    concern.
    If she'd ever needed proof of that, Anne thought, she had it now. Julian
    had retreated, sick and injured, to his lair after that last mission,
    preferring to lick his wounds alone.
    She didn't try to fool herself. Anne knew very well that he wasn't going
    to be at all grateful for her nursing. When he came out of the aftermath of
    this fever he was going to be dangerous. He would be violently resentful of
    the fact that she had witnessed his weakness. Hurting as badly as he was
    he could easily turn on her and claw her, out of frustration and anger.
    She'd had no right to track him to his lair, Anne told herself grimly, and
    had no one but herself to blame for the mauling that was bound to ensue.
    Trapped here now, partly because of the snow and partly because there
    was no way she could leave while he was so helpless from the effects of the
    mysterious fever, she knew her only hope was to protect herself as much as
    possible.
    There was no chance of coming out of the ordeal unscathed, but if she
    was very careful she might keep from getting completely lacerated.
    3
    « ^ »
    T he first warning snarls came around lunchtime when Anne carried a tray
    of hot chicken-noodle soup and a small sandwich into the bedroom.
    Julian's brooding gaze was on her the second she appeared in the doorway
    of his room, and she knew he had been waiting impatiently.
    "I hate chicken-noodle soup."
    "Then why do you have six cans of it on your kitchen shelves?" With a
    determinedly bright smile, Anne adjusted the tray in front of him. He sat
    back against the pillows, glaring at the soup bowl.
    "I didn't feel like doing a lot of grocery shopping on the way up here. I
    just scooped up whatever was handy at the store in town."
    "Winding up with six cans of a soup you don't like will teach you to be a
    more careful shopper in the future, won't it?" Anne observed cheerfully as
    she sat down in the chair beside the window to supervise his lunch.
    He slanted her an assessing glance. There was clear menace in the
    catlike eyes but there were also traces of pain, and it was all Anne could do
    to keep from going over to the bed and cuddling him. Prudently she
    resisted the impulse, knowing she could easily get herself slashed in the
    process. Weak as he was, Julian was nevertheless dangerous, and she
    would be a fool to forget it.
    "Shopping," he stated, "has never been one of my favorite hobbies."
    "What are your favorite hobbies, Julian?" Anne demanded chattily. "I've
    often wondered if you have any. We know so little about each other."
    "You discovered one of them last night." Morosely he picked up the
    soupspoon and tried a taste. "When uninvited females show up on my
    doorstep I take them to bed."
    Anne astonished herself by not even flinching. "I'm afraid I must have
    missed something, then. You were flying high on that fever long before we
    ever reached the bedroom. Don't you remember how you kept
    complaining of the heat?"
    "I remember how hot you were," he countered bluntly. "Compared to
    you, the fireplace was an iceberg."
    "Your imagination certainly goes into overdrive when you're under the
    influence of that fever," Anne noted smoothly. "What is it, anyway?
    Malaria?"
    "Something similar." He tried another spoonful of soup.
    "Have you had many bouts of it? Those tablets in your medicine
    chest…"
    "I picked it up on that damned island. It comes and goes."
    "But how often has it recurred?" she persisted.
    "Three or