Guarding Miranda by Amanda M. Holt Read Free Book Online Page B

constant nagging was seeing to it that she was set to regain full use of her left arm.
    The long month and a half spent at Letterman General Hospital had dragged by due to unforeseen complications with her recovery, yet Miranda had healed far better than anyone predicted she would. 
    She was going to be discharged from the hospital soon, she knew and there was nothing she looked forward to more. 
    Luckily for Miranda, the tabloids had all but forgotten about her, deciding instead to focus on three-headed babies raised in the wild and various love triangles between the rich and famous. 
    For that, she was grateful. 
    It was bad enough that she was the only heir to the Fowler family fortune.
    Worse yet, was that the media found it fit to remind her of that every so often...
    She could do without any additional infamy.
    Miranda looked at the pile of newspapers that had accumulated on the floor next to her bed.  Friends of hers had thought she would be interested in following the case from the journalists’ perspective but she was not. 
    She preferred to get her news directly from the police officers heading the investigation, kind as they were to update her every couple of days.
    Richard’s killer was still out there, free as a bird, while Richard himself lay in a grave that Miranda had yet to visit, while she herself was still in the hospital. 
    But not for long! 
    The additional surgeries to repair the nerve damage in her left shoulder had been well worth the extra stay. 
    Tomorrow, she would be going home.
*                      *                      *
    A week after Miranda was released from the hospital, she was asking for an audience with Brian Logan, the man whom newspapers and nurses alike claimed had saved her life.  He was a man to whom she was very grateful, though not yet properly introduced to.
    Obliging her wishes, Russ placed a phone call inviting Brian over for supper. 
    Apparently, Brian had accepted, which left Miranda with the predicament of finding something suitable to wear.
    What did one wear for a meeting with their own personal hero? 
    The latest in summer fashion, as it was now June the twelfth? 
    Or perhaps a casual dress in forest green, to match her dark green eyes?  Something alluring or something conservative?  Shorts and a tank top or a grey wool power suit?
    Thumbing through the racks of clothing in her walk in closet, her left arm in its temporary sling, she decided at long last on a silk tank top, in dark emerald to compliment her eyes and a pair of plain black dress pants. 
    Black slip on flats were God’s gift to the one-armed.
    Pearl earrings followed the strand of pearls that she had gotten Lynn to affix at her throat.
    She brushed her long, glossy black hair until all the stray ends were tamed into order.  She decided against makeup and then changed her mind, adding a bit of mascara to the long black eyelashes that framed her intelligent green eyes, the faintest touch of blush to her ivory cheeks and a cherry-colored gloss to her rosebud lips.
    She stared back at her reflection with a sullen smile and frowned slightly as she absentmindedly caressed the sling that kept her left arm immobile. 
    The sling was only a precaution now – her physiotherapist, Mark, had told her she would be able to begin a limited range of further activity in a few more days. 
    As it was, the slow, cautious exercises she had been doing to rebuild and recuperate the damaged muscles under the physiotherapist’s direction had begun to incorporate light weights and other strengthening tools.
    Mark was certain she’d have full use of her arm in no time, no time at all .
    She assumed that was good news...
    Miranda was downstairs watching Oprah’s channel with Lynn when the doorbell rang. 
     
    Chapter Four
     
    Miranda glanced at the clock – it was ten to five, nearly supper time. 
    Was it him ?
    Brian Logan? 
    Her hero ? 
    She couldn’t help but