The Bride Wore Blue by Cindy Gerard Read Free Book Online Page B

so decisively eclipse her unbreachable control. At least she’d thought it was unbreachable.
    Her relationship with Rolfe had taught her the power and necessity of control. A relationship with a man like Blue Hazzard could threaten, if not destroy it. And loss of control could end up destroying her.
    That’s why she couldn’t let him any closer. That’s why he couldn’t sleep on her sofa. He might have stumbled on to her by accident, but the fact that he was still here was as calculated as her plan to drop out of life as she’d known it.
    He’d set her up. She could feel it as certainly as she felt her fatigue fight with her inability to get a good night’s sleep.
    So she made herself stay in bed. Made herself quit getting up every five minutes to look out the window and see if the camp fire was still burning. Made herself stop trying to catch a glimpse of the sculpted angles of his profile as the firelight played across his features, tipping his golden hair with shades of amber and burnt sienna.
    She willed herself to quit wondering if he was the kind of man he seemed to be. A man who loved life, loved to play, wasn’t above a little good-natured manipulating to get what he wanted, but didn’t have a mean bone in his body beneath all that sizzle and sex appeal.
    No, she told herself firmly. Don’t get caught up in wishing for the impossible. Don’t get fooled by the pretty package. And for God’s sake, don’t forget what you’re running away from.
    She rolled to her stomach, determined to ride this out until tomorrow when he’d be gone. The first drop of rain pelted the bedroom window then. The unmistakable howl of a rising wind was quick to follow. The sharp scrape and whine at her door came soon after that.
    She scowled into the pillow then assimilated the sound with the cause. Hershey.
    Her nurturing heart ruled her actions then. Poor baby. The lab was scared. Maggie knew all about fear. The fear of being left alone. The fear of wondering where her next meal would come from. The fear of wondering if she’d ever find a safe haven.
    She tossed back the covers and snagged her robe from a chair by the bed. Shivering with the chill of the Minnesota night, she tied the robe tightly around her waist and walked on bare feet to the living room.
    When she opened the door, it was to the most pitiful sight she’d ever seen. Hershey sat, one paw up, his ears hanging low, his brown eyes big and soulful and pleading. And while his thick brown coat had shed the rain as effectively as duck down, he was shivering as if he’d been caught in an ice storm.
    “You ought to take that show on the road,” Maggie murmured with an amused shake of her head, then opened the door wide enough for the lab to snake through. “People would pay big money to see such a stellar performance— Hey! Where do you think you’re going?”
    Just that fast, Hershey, with the instincts of a coonhound, homed in on the bedroom, made one huge happy leap and landed in the middle of her bed. With a grunt of satisfaction, he nosed under the covers and burrowed deep.
    “You little finagler,” Maggie scolded as she trailed after the damp dog and tried to coax him out from under the blankets.
    Hershey’s only response was a low, warning growl.
    Maggie grinned. “So you want to play hardball, huh?”
    Hands on her hips, she stared at the lump in the middle of the mattress and wondered why she wasn’t more upset. In the next instant, she knew the reason. Where the dog went, so went the man. So why hadn’t he been begging at her door with Hershey?
    An electrifying bolt of lightning cracked through the night, illuminating the dark cabin and the world outside the window.
    She stood transfixed as her eyes took in the sudden storm, the violent crash of water to shore—and the figure hunched on his knees at the end of her dock.
    Even through the dark and even at this distance, his size made it impossible to mistake him for anyone but Blue. Her brows drew