The Marriage Pact (Hqn) by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

the silence, suddenly shaking himself off exuberantly, baptizing both Tripp and Hadleigh in sprays of dog-scented rainwater.
    There was a taut moment and then, entirely against her will, Hadleigh laughed.
    Tripp’s eyes lit up at the sound, and he uttered a raspy chuckle.
    Damn, even his laugh was sexy.
    Thinking of the ill-fated frog again, Hadleigh turned away quickly, rattling the knob. The door jammed, since the wood was old and tended to swell in damp weather, and she was about to give it a hard shove with her shoulder when Tripp calmly reached past her, splayed a hand against the panel and pushed.
    “This place needs some work,” he observed quietly.
    Of course, the door flew open immediately, creaking on its hinges, and Muggles, who must have been waiting with her nose pressed to the crack, scrabbled backward, nails clicking on the wooden floor, to get out of the way.
    Hadleigh felt a little swell of joy, despite the fact that she wasn’t over watching poor Earl being shoved into the back of an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. And now, without warning, here was Tripp.
    Of all people.
    Still, she had one reason for celebration: Muggles would be staying with her from now on, with Earl’s blessing.
    “She’s harmless,” Hadleigh said, for whose benefit she didn’t know, when Tripp’s dog and the retriever met on the threshold, nose to nose, conducting a silent standoff.
    Ridley gave in first, wagging his tail and drawing back the corners of his mouth in a doggy grin. His whole manner seemed to say, Charmed, I’m sure.
    “This guy’s pretty timid himself,” Tripp replied, making no move to unsnap the leash.
    A few tense moments passed—at least, Hadleighfelt tense—and then Muggles apparently lost interest, because she turned and meandered into the living room to settle on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace.
    Relieved that a dogfight hadn’t broken out but otherwise as unsettled as before, Hadleigh led Tripp through the small dining room and into the tidy kitchen beyond, although she knew he could have found his way on his own, blindfolded. After all, he’d spent almost as much time in this house, growing up, as in his own. He and Will had been all but inseparable in those days.
    Hadleigh took off her hoodie as they entered the heart of the house, where countless meals had been shared, where flesh-and-blood human beings had laughed and cried, celebrated and mourned, swapped dreams and secrets and silly jokes.
    Heedlessly, in contrast to her usual freakish neatness, she tossed the sodden garment through the laundry-room doorway and moved automatically toward the coffeemaker. It was what country and small-town people did when someone dropped in—whether that someone was welcome or not. They offered a seat at the table, a cup of hot, fresh coffee, especially in bad weather, and, usually, food.
    Since this busywork afforded Hadleigh a few desperately needed minutes to recover from the lingering shock of seeing Tripp Galloway again, she took full advantage of it. Of all the things she might have expected to happen that day, or any other for that matter, an up-close-and-personal encounter with her girlhood hero, teenage heartthrob and erstwhile nemesis wouldn’t have been anywhere on the radar.
    The decision to come home must have been a sudden one on Tripp’s part. If he’d mentioned his plans to anyone, the news would have spread through Mustang Creek like a wildfire. She’d have heard about it, surely.
    Or not.
    “Sit down,” she said. This, too, was automatic, like the offer to serve coffee. Inside, she was still thinking about the scorpion and the toad.
    Dumb-ass toad.
    She heard a familiar scraping sound as Tripp pulled back a chair at the table.
    Ridley ambled over to Muggles’s bowl and lapped up some water, and that made Hadleigh smile. Make yourself at home, dog, she thought fondly. She might have issues with Tripp—hell, she had a lot of them—but she’d never met a dog she