Lacy (The Doves of Primrose) by Krista Kedrick Read Free Book Online Page A

and her memory occurs. Which is almost never.” Lacy munched a carrot stick. “She’d just cause more trouble than be of help anyway. I’d be cleaning up her messes on top of scaring birds out of trees.”
    A mental picture of what she must have looked like dangling from that tree branch popped into Lacy’s head and she started to laugh. Emmylou joined in until they were both gasping for breath and wiping tears from their eyes.
    Lacy had done some pretty absurd things in her life but that was one of her more ridiculous disasters. It was nice that Kyle had been the one to literally break her fall. She kind of hoped his back was injured. It was a small justice for the hurt and humiliation he had caused her.

Chapter 4
     
     
    Kyle stretched with his hands on his lower back, trying to dispel some of the ache. He watched the two women stomp into the house and knew better than to follow, although he didn’t understand the sheer hatred Lacy was shooting at him. He couldn’t think of anything that would piss her off enough for that kind of behavior, except their past history. And, if anything, he should be mad at her for the way it ended. Leaving him the way she did was harsh.
    It was her unpredictable nature that attracted him in the first place, so he shouldn’t be surprised. She was a wild child and he was required to be as straight as a billy goat’s pecker in green grass. When she blew into his life that day in Dandy’s Soda Shop it was the first breath of life he’d taken in six years.
    Not that he hadn’t noticed her before. He had. She always seemed to be where the action was, his eye drawn in her direction so many times he should have developed whiplash. But he had a reputation to maintain; it was only girls his mother approved of and Darla Weston’s daughter was not on that list. Under different circumstances he would have defied every rule and crossed every boundary to have Lacy and eventually she proved too tempting to avoid.
    He found her in the shop , trying on sunglasses too large for her petite face and sucking on a strawberry malt. He knew he had to have her or at the very least be next to her, to talk to her and hear that heavenly voice.
    Kyle could still recall every sparkle in her chocolate eyes, ev ery tuck of her wild hair, the challenge in her stance and when her slender fingers settled on his arm, his heart shot through his chest and directly into her hands.
    The power of that memory and the layers of others still sin ging through his mind made his hands shake. Being here at the bed and breakfast had brought back all those feelings and more.  He automatically lifted his head to the window that he used to climb into - it felt like yesterday.  He was eighteen again and in love with a girl who set his world on fire. She was everything to him. He had never told her that. He didn’t think Lacy would have understood his feelings. To her, what they had was casual. She had said as much to him that last day by the pond. He had planned to tell her he loved her and explain his plans for the future, their future, but she had called what they had “a last fling of the summer.”
    Reeling from her statement, he had gone to his truck and when he came back with a blanket she was gone. She snipped all the strings to his heart and skipped away the first chance she had. He left the next day for Texas on his rodeo scholarship, as planned, and his life went in a completely different direction. Now he was back home and he was mad as an old wet hen. He hadn’t been when he first arrived. He had tried to have some fun with Lacy, hell, he had even saved her damn neck from that tree. But the forgotten past had surfaced with a sting.
    “Hey there.”
    Kyle shifted his head to the voice and found he was sitting in the wicker chair on the front porch. “Oh, hi, Lauren.” He blinked, trying to regain his senses. “Did you need something?”
    The look on her face made him aware of his tone.
    “Sorry, do you want to