Test of Time by Jayne Ann Krentz Read Free Book Online Page A

fast lane."
    The thought that he found her inability to fit into the fast lane amusing fueled the dangerous mixture of emotions that were beginning to simmer in Katy. "I haven't exactly been living in a locked box, you know. I have plenty of friends and a reasonably active social life."
    "Hey, calm down, I didn't say you'd been living in total seclusion."
    He tried soothing her with a slow stroking motion that only made Katy think of the techniques he used to soothe horses. She remembered well that Garrett had always been good with horses. He'd handled animals in her father's stables that no one else could control. She stirred against him and tried to pull away. "Please," she whispered, "I want to go clean up."
    He held her more tightly. "It's all right, you know. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's all natural. Go to sleep, Katy. It's been a long, tiring day and you're still riding on your nerves. Just go to sleep."
    She knew she wasn't going to be able to escape the restraint of his arm without causing a major scene, so Katy lay still beside her new husband and waited for him to follow his own advice. She had a horror of scenes.
    It didn't take long. Garrett was asleep within minutes.
    Katy carefully slipped out from under his arm to go into the bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door and sat down on the edge of the tub to cry.
    She didn't cry for long. She wasn't the type, Ten minutes later Katy. wiped her eyes and made her decision.
    Chapter Three

    Sometime after one o'clock Katy managed to crawl back into bed without disturbing Garrett and fall into a restless sleep. Garrett had been right about one thing—it had been a long, tiring day and she needed the rest.
    She awoke shortly before dawn, coming alert with an unnatural abruptness. She knew a brief sense of disorientation until, with a jolt of adrenaline, she registered the fact that she wasn't alone in the wide bed.
    Of course she wasn't alone. Garrett was beside her. She had married a man who didn't love her but who now had the right to sleep with her.
    Slowly Katy pushed aside the covers. She sat up carefully, not wanting to awaken her husband. Her beautiful nightgown was in a crumpled heap on the floor beside the bed, a pool of silver on a carpet of pink. Katy reached for the robe of the peignoir and pulled it around herself.
    In the light of an approaching dawn the wedding suite appeared frivolous to the point of being ridiculous. Katy winced as she looked around. The place could give a person cavities just from looking at it. It was as phony and full of illusion as her marriage. En route to the bathroom, Katy noticed that there was nothing but water left in the ice bucket. The champagne would be warm. But that hardly mattered.
    Women such as she did not drink champagne for breakfast. Only fast-living types got to do that sort of thing. Katy barely resisted the urge to pick up the bucket and hurl the contents at Garrett's unsuspecting head.
    By the time she had emerged from the bathroom dressed in jeans and a green top, the sun was just barely above the horizon. A glance at the bed showed Garrett still apparently asleep. Katy glared at his motionless figure sprawled beneath the pink-and-white-striped sheet. The man hadn't even noticed that his bride was missing from his side, she thought resentfully. She stalked to the window.
    It took her a moment to identify the emotions she was experiencing. Katy had not had a lot of experience with such things as resentment, anger and outrage.
    Outside, sunlight played on the Pacific, changing the color of the ocean into an intense blue that stretched to the end of the world. Katy gazed out at the endless vista and wondered at the force of the anger that blazed within her. She had never felt like this before in her life. It was as startling in its own way as the discovery of the depths of her own passionate nature had been last night.
    Garrett Coltrane, she reflected furiously, was the cause of both new