Her Ideal Man by Ruth Wind Read Free Book Online

Tyler replied, without turning. “But she has Alonzo there now. That’ll help.”
    He didn’t look at her, and Anna stood up, realizing it was time to leave him alone. “I guess I’ll turn in,” she said. “Shall I just sleep in Curtis’s bed?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œDo you need anything?” He turned, finally, the polite host.
    Anna smiled. “No, thanks. Good night, Tyler.”
    He said nothing until she was nearly at Curtis’s door. “Anna,” he said.
    She turned.
    Tyler crossed his arms. “Thank you.”
    â€œAnytime.”

Chapter 4
    A fter Anna went to bed, Tyler took his snifter of brandy back to the fire. Kneeling, he carefully fed the low, hot flame bits of small wood and two thick logs, poking the ashes to heat things up for a minute. It was going to be one cold night—he hoped Anna would be warm enough. He should check the fire in the stove there a little later, but first he’d give her a chance to fall asleep. He’d grown adept at doing it silently while Curtis slept.
    Curtis. Tyler picked up the teddy bear from one of the chairs and clasped it to his chest as if it were a child. He missed his son tonight, and wondered how he was doing. Probably fine. And it would be nice for Louise to have the boy there if the storm really was this bad in the valley.
    Of course, she did have Alonzo now. Sort of. With his courtly manners and twinkling eyes, he was the man Louise should have had a long time ago. Although Tyler didn’t think anything had really developed between them yet, he didn’t think it would be long. And finally, maybe, his mother would have the mate she deserved.
    Which would leave Tyler the odd man out. As he always had been, except with Kara.
    He looked at the picture of her on the mantel. She had been his best friend for more than twenty years. With Kara, he had been free to be himself, as he never had been with anyone else.
    Familiar melancholy descended, a hollowness he had finally realized would never go away. She had been more than his wife, more than his lover. She had been his best friend, the other half of him. He was thirty-one years old, and had spent more than half his life with her.
    He lifted the brandy and toasted her picture. “To you,” he said softly, and sipped.
    But the ritual left him oddly cold. With a frown, he looked into the red-amber liquor in his glass and wondered why he’d felt numb about this all day. Usually, he awakened on this anniversary with a sense of anticipation, as if he would be actually seeing Kara again. In some vague part of his brain, he knew it was foolish, and he also knew he had to contain his ritual to one night a year or he’d end up as crazy as a rabid dog.
    If Curtis had been here tonight, they would have played games, simple card games and board games such as Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. They would have had hot chocolate and maybe baked cookies, and Tyler would have had the comfort of that small, plump body next to his own.
    Instead, Tyler had consigned himself to the habitual, now empty ritual, in an empty house, in a raging storm that would trap him with his melancholy, miles away from the rest of the world.
    And who had the heavens sent to keep him company? A gypsy magpie with a Queens accent, who had more earnestness than good sense and a suspicious shine in her eyes when she looked at him.
    He scowled. The lost prince. Right.
    With a sigh, he got to his feet and extinguished the candles and lamps. Quickly he shed his clothes in the dark and climbed under the covers, thinking with some embarrassment of the way he’d spilled his guts tonight. She was a good listener.
    But he’d left parts of the story out. He had left out the furious anger he had felt toward Kara throughout her pregnancy. It had been fury fueled by love, but it had seriously strained their previously solid relationship. To make matters worse, he had