The Edge of Heaven by TERESA HILL Read Free Book Online Page B

look. "I'm impressed."
    So was he. In a very bad way.
    "Let's eat," he said.
    "Okay." She turned to the cabinets. Opening one, she raised up on her toes to reach the top shelf, giving him a perfect view of her tempting backside encased in a pair of jeans that fit like a glove and hugged every enticing curve.
    He practically growled, "How old are you?"
    "How old do you think I am?" She eased down off her toes, two plates in hand, seeming to take delight in throwing it right back at him.
    But at least she was smiling. He liked seeing Emma smile. Trying not to growl at her or take a bite of her, he said, "Twenty-three? Maybe twenty-five?"
    Please, let her be twenty-five.
    "Close enough," she said.
    "Emma?" He took a plate from her and filled one for her, cheese crepes topped with a sauce he'd made using some of her aunt's blackberry jam and some whipped cream.
    "It's just a number, right?" she said, taking her plate and smiling mischievously.
    "No, it's not just a number."
    Not when he was thinking he might be ten years older than she was, maybe even more. Not that he was going to let anything happen between them. Still...
    "I'm starving," Emma said. "Can we eat? And I was thinking... If you don't have anything to do today, maybe you could help me with the Christmas lights. I need to get them up soon."
    He frowned. "You didn't tell me how old you are."
    "Old enough," she claimed, seating herself on one side of the breakfast bar and waiting for him to do the same.
    He made a plate for himself, sat down across from her, a good bit of pretty granite countertop stretching between them, which had seemed like a good idea at the time. But it meant he got a front-row seat as every spoonful went into her delectable-looking mouth.
    And he was supposed to be figuring out how old she was, dammit.
    He had a nagging sense that he wasn't going to like her answer, once he got one out of her. But honestly, how young could she possibly be? She'd said she was finishing college. So she had to be twenty-one or twenty-two.
    Twenty-one?
    He frowned.
    Twenty-one-year-olds were practically infants, weren't they? Didn't they still giggle and flirt shamelessly and guzzle beer at parties with frat boys?
    She probably went to parties with frat boys.
    Rye sat there while she moaned and groaned in appreciation over bite after bite. He tried to block out the sound, because it made him think of Emma in her bath, in her vanilla-scented water with her now vanilla-scented skin.
    If she was a day over twenty-three and he was anyone but who he was, he would have let himself imagine feeding her crepes in the bathtub, getting her out, and eating her up. Yeah, that would have worked for him.
    "What's wrong?" she asked.
    He looked up at her, finding her chewing slowly, her pretty mouth pursed into something that looked like a kiss at the moment. "Nothing."
    "Headache?" she tried cheerfully.
    "No."
    "Bad news?"
    "No."
    Her cheer faded. "Mark didn't call again?"
    "No. Nothing like that," he promised, putting down his fork and staring out the window into the backyard, anywhere but at her. "I'm just thinking about you and your little situation."
    "Oh. You'll stay here today?"
    "I don't know if that's such a good idea, Emma. Anyway, that just addresses today. You can't stay here by yourself worrying that any minute he's going to show up at the door."
    "Do you think he would?" She looked so worried. "Because I thought of that, and I've been trying to tell myself I'm just being silly to be so scared."
    "I don't know. You know the guy better than I do."
    "No, I don't." She put her fork down, pushed the plate away, all enjoyment she might have taken in the meal gone. "I thought I did, but I didn't ever think..."
    He was sorry he'd brought this up. "You didn't think he'd hit you?"
    "No. He never came close to losing his temper like that." She stared at her plate. Her face tilted forward. Her hair fell across her bruised cheek.
    "Okay." He forced himself to go on. She needed to