Twilight by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online Page A

cause. She believed that of Rick Sanchez, because she had to. The hatred, the need for revenge, was all that anchored her these days.
    Rick leaned against the counter, propped one sneaker-clad foot on the rung of a chair and cradled his coffee mug in hands that, despite their nicks and scars, looked somehow graceful. Sure and competent hands. Hands that could caress a woman’s body and bring it alive.
    Dear heaven, where had that last come from? She glanced at Kate and saw that she, too, was fascinated with Rick Sanchez, fascinated the way a woman would be with a devastatingly attractive man who radiated sexuality from every pore.
    That, of course, was his single most potent weapon, Dana realized. If she weren’t careful, if she weren’t strong, he would weave that easy magic over her, as well. She was lonely now and, like too many lonely women, she was vulnerable. She could not, she would not, allow anything to happen between her and this man. She would keep the hostility alive as protection, as a duty.
    “I’m waiting,” she said, keeping her voice icy, her expression remote. “Unless you have something specific to discuss, I’d like you to go.”
    His lips curved again. “Patience, Dana.”
    “I don’t have time to be patient. I have things to do.”
    “Planning more break-ins?”
    She scowled at him. “Possibly.”
    “Not at Yo, Amigo, I hope.”
    “If that’s where the answers are, then I’ll be back.”
    “I’ve already told you that the program and its boys are not the key to Ken’s death.”
    “How can you possibly be so confident of that?”
    “Because everyone at Yo, Amigo loved Ken,” he said.
    The simple declaration shook her as more vehement statements might not have done so. For just a moment, she wished she hadn’t remained so adamantly opposed to what Ken had been doing. She wished that she had accepted one of his repeated offers to take her with him, to let her see for herself why these lost kids mattered so much to him.
    Instead, she had clung to the long-ago betrayal of a boy very much like those in Rick’s program. She had been trying to help him and his lawyer fight armed robbery charges he claimed had been unfairly brought. She had believed in him. Only after they had successfully fought off a conviction had she discovered he was guilty, that he had played on her sympathy and used her clever investigative skills to win his case.
    Weeks later, released from jail, he had shot and killed another storekeeper in yet another robbery attempt. A scared sixteen-year-old boy had been his accomplice. He had been shot by police arriving at the scene. She had vowed right then never to trust her instincts again, never to trust vows of innocence and remorse from the very kind of boys Ken and Rick believed capable of change.
    Had she put aside that vow and gone with Ken, would she have shared Rick’s belief that his teens were incapable of harming Ken? She doubted it. Her own experience would have warned against it.
    In fact, she would have grabbed on to any possible motive, any possible suspect, just as she was doing now. She was too desperate for answers to exclude anyone on blind faith alone.
    “What do these kids know about love?” she countered.
    “Precious little,” Rick agreed. “But they experienced it with your husband. Ken showed them what it meant to be accepted unconditionally, to be forgiven. He taught them they were worthy of God’s love. Every one of them was blessed to have known him.” His gaze locked on hers. “And they knew that.”
    Dana shuddered under that unwavering gaze. In his own way, Rick Sanchez was as fervent in his beliefs as Ken had been in his. She, to the contrary, believed in nothing anymore, not even in the generous, compassionate, forgiving God who had guided her husband.
    Despite their opposing views of his boys, she couldn’t help being swayed just a little by Rick’s faith in them. “Okay, Mr. Sanchez. Say I were to take your word for the moment