Night Betrayed by Joss Ware Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed to be moving all right, considering the wounds he’d seen last night. Whether by accident or design, she was wearing a shirt that covered every part of her torso, so he couldn’t tell what the gashes looked like now. But Theo trusted that Vonnie had done a good job taking care of a woman she clearly had great affection for.
    “You too,” he replied and tugged his eyes from the apple-sized breasts hinted at in the vee of the simple linen tunic she wore. His gaze skittered away and over the lean sweep of thighs in jeans that had seen better days—hell, they had to be fifty years old, because no one made Levi’s anymore—and down to the surprise of bare feet.
    She had slender, golden feet that matched the rest of her skin—the color of honey—with elegant arches, slender toes, and red toenails.
    Red toenails?
    Theo looked again. He hadn’t seen a woman with painted toenails for fifty years. He pulled his attention away from the anachronism and found Selena watching him. But she didn’t make any comment about the fact that he’d been staring at her toes. Maybe she thought he was looking at the floor.
    “Thought I saw a spider,” Theo said, then wondered why he’d bothered. “There on the floor.” His mouth seemed to be working all on its own.
    Selena squeaked and stiffened, doing a little dance, and said, “Did you? Don’t kill it!”
    Hiding a smile, Theo replied, “No, I was mistaken.”
    “Good,” she said briskly, all in control again. He had to fight even harder to control the smile at her lightning-quick change. “I don’t like spiders, but there’s no need to kill them. Just put ’em outside.”
    Vonnie spoke up: “That’s not all you’re going to eat.”
    “That’s all I need,” Selena said, gesturing with the peeled orange that now had three sections taken out of it. “Gotta go check on some things.”
    And before either of them could say anything else, she streaked from the kitchen in the same direction that Theo had come from.
    “That girl,” Vonnie said, shaking her head, “doesn’t eat enough to feed a bird.”
    “She doesn’t look like she’s wasting away,” Theo commented, wishing again that he could see how her rear filled out those jeans. But the tunic was too long and she’d zipped away before he had the chance to try.
    And it occurred to him that he was surprised that he was actually interested in trying.
    It had been a long time since he’d been interested in the shape of any woman besides a shy, curvy redhead with the freckle on her lip. Theo’s stomach tightened as he pushed the thought away.
    It was over. Done. She hadn’t wanted him.
    “No, Selena’s not wasting away,” the older woman said. “But she’s very picky. Won’t eat much of anything. No meat, hardly any cheese or milk. Just vegetables and fruit. Nuts and seeds. Like a little bird. Always been that way.”
    That probably explained her tight, slender body. Theo shrugged mentally, wondering how they’d come to be talking about Selena’s eating habits. “What about Sam’s father?”
    Vonnie looked sharply at him, acknowledging his curiosity. “He’s not in the picture anymore. Good riddance, if you ask me.”
    Well, that was good. He guessed. “How long have you known Selena?”
    “Since she was a tiny baby,” Vonnie replied. “I found her. In the middle of it all.”
    Those words settled over Theo like a cool blanket. “In the middle of . . . ?”
    For the first time since he’d come into the room, she actually stopped, positioning herself there in front of him at the counter. “In the middle of the Change. She could only have been a couple days old. It was a miracle that she survived. A little tiny mite with a head of dark hair, hardly bigger than a kitten. She was completely alone.”
    A wave of thoughts assaulted him like a wave of video missiles, but one zoomed to the front of his mind and sat there: Holy shit. Selena’s fifty? No effing way!
    Vonnie had gone back to her