Texas! Chase #2 by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online

coat and purse. "Since you're here to take over, I'll say goodbye."
    "I'll walk you to your car."
    "There's no need to, Lucky," she said, hastily turning to open the door for herself. She didn't want them to see her tears. "I'll call later to check on him. Goodbye."
    What had been falling as sleet a hundred miles west was a cold, miserable, wind-driven rain in East Texas. Marcie drove carefully, her vision impaired by the falling precipitation on her windshield… and her own tears.
    Chase released a string of curses when someone knocked on his door late that evening.
    After having been dusted, mopped, scoured, vacuumed, and disinfected, his apartment was finally clean, empty, and silent. With only himself and the nagging pain in his ribs for company, he was finishing his dinner in blessed peace.
    He thought of ignoring the knock. Whoever it was might think he was asleep and go away.
    However, on the outside chance it was Lucky sneaking him a bottle of something stronger than tea or coffee, he left his seat at the bar and padded to the door.
    Marcie was standing on the threshold, holding a bouquet of flowers. He had never seen her in a pair of jeans that he could recall.
    They made her legs look long and slim—thighs that seemed to go on forever.
    Beneath her short, quilted denim jacket, she was wearing a sweatshirt. It was decorated with splatters of metallic paint, but it was still a sweatshirt and a far cry from the business suits she was usually dressed in.
    She'd left her hair down too. Instead of the tailored bun she had worn that morning, the flame-colored curls were lying loose on her shoulders. They were beaded with raindrops that glistened like diamond chips in the glow of the porch light. He didn't particularly like red hair, but he noticed that Marcie's looked soft and pretty tonight.
    About the only thing that was familiar were her eyeglasses. All through school, Goosey Johns had worn glasses. It occurred to him now that she must have been wearing contacts, even two years ago when they had been reacquainted in his office just before she and Tanya left to look at a house together—the afternoon Tanya died.
    "It's a cold night out," she said.

    "Oh, sorry." He shuffled out of her path and she slipped past him to come inside.
    "Are you alone?"
    "Thankfully."
    He closed the door and turned to her. Her eyes moved over him in a nervous manner that made him want to smile. To please his
    mother, he had bathed and shaved and shampooed.
    But he hadn't dressed and was still wearing only his bathrobe.
    An old maid like Marcie probably wasn't used to talking to a barefooted, barelegged, bare-chested man, although she had demonstrated aplomb when he had come out of his hospital bed wearing nothing more than his bandage.
    A hospital room was a safe, uncompromising environment compared to a man's apartment, however.
    Chase sensed her uneasiness and decided that it served her right for butting in where she wasn't wanted.
    "These are for you." She extended him the colorful bouquet.
    "Flowers?"
    "Is it unmacho for a man to accept flowers?" she asked testily.
    "It's not that. They remind me of funerals."
    He laid the bouquet on the coffee table, which
    Devon had polished to a high gloss earlier that afternoon. "Thanks for thinking of flowers, but I'd rather have a bottle of whiskey.
    I'm not particular about brand names."
    She shook her head. "Not as long as you're taking painkillers."
    "Those pills don't kill the pain."
    "If your ribs are hurting that badly, maybe you should go to the emergency room here and check in."
    "I wasn't talking about that pain," he mumbled, swinging away and moving to the bar where he had left his dinner. "Want some?"
    "Chili?" With distaste she stared down into the bowl of greasy Texas red. "What happened to the chicken soup your mother made for you?"
    "I ate it for lunch but couldn't stomach it for two meals in a row."
    "I bought the canned chili today thinking it would make a convenient meal in a day