I Cross My Heart Read Free Page B

one’s ever... I’ve never had anyone tell me...” She took a shaky breath. “You look as if you hate me.”
    He scrubbed a hand over his face and gazed up at the sky. “Bethany Grace.” He chuckled, but the sound had no humor in it. Then he looked at her again. “My ex-wife loves your books.”
    From the way he said it, Bethany knew that wasn’t a good thing. “Okay.”
    He studied her for long enough that she became very aware of how sweaty and dirty she was. And how foolish this stunt of hers must look to him, now that he knew she was the author of bestsellers such as Living with Grace and her current chart-topper, Grace Personified. She’d always been proud of her success, but given this situation, she should have kept her mouth shut. Today was the wrong time for her to be in the glare of a spotlight that would reveal her flaws.
    Too late. “I suppose you’re wondering if I’m a hypocrite.”
    “It crossed my mind. I can’t figure out why a woman who tells everyone that happiness is a choice would set fire to her daddy’s recliner. That doesn’t seem like a particularly cheerful move, to me.” He was obviously enjoying pointing that out.
    She flushed. “It wasn’t. I’m not proud of my reaction. It was unworthy of me to do that.”
    His expression underwent a subtle change, as if that admission had soaked up some of his anger. “But oh, so very human.”
    “You don’t have to sound so smug when you say that.”
    This time his chuckle was a little less caustic. “Yeah, I do. Whether you know it or not, you owe me a bit of smugness.”
    “What happened?”
    He hesitated.
    “Please. Your statement will eat at me if you don’t explain where it came from.”
    He blew out a breath. “Okay. Short version. My in-laws were convinced that I’d only married Lindsay for her money. I think they finally convinced Lindsay, too, because she developed an attitude. She made it plain that a poor boy like me was lucky to be there.”
    “Ouch.”
    “I realize now her parents started the sabotage early and gradually turned up the heat, the way you cook a frog without the frog even noticing. I became more and more irritable. Then Lindsay found your books and felt free to remind me that H appiness Is a Choice . ”
    She was appalled. “That’s not how my books are supposed to be read. You can’t undermine someone’s confidence and then berate them for not being happy enough.”
    “Tell that to Lindsay and her folks.”
    “I will if you’d like me to. I resent that they—”
    “I didn’t mean that literally. Don’t waste your time on them. But I have to admit, seeing you in the middle of a meltdown helps. Even the sainted Bethany Grace has a bad day once in a while.”
    “Sainted? I never claimed to be perfect!”
    “Lindsay thinks you are. As opposed to me, a person riddled with problems.”
    “That’s ridiculous. We all have problems. I’ve admitted that in everything I’ve written.” Then she had a thought. “Did you ever read one of my books?”
    “One chapter.”
    She tried to remember if she’d admitted any problems in Chapter One of Living with Grace or the earlier books. Maybe not. “Then you stopped reading?”
    “Then I threw the book against the wall.”
    She winced.
    “Sorry, but you have to remember this was a book recommended by the woman who, with the help of her folks, was mentally torturing me. I could only take so much of the rainbows and lollipops you were handing out.”
    “All things considered, you probably won’t ever make it through an entire book of mine, and I don’t blame you. But somewhere in Living with Grace, maybe toward the middle, I admit to having a temper, and you’ve just seen me demonstrate that.”
    Nash glanced at the now-soggy recliner. “Pretty impressive, too. Those old recliners are heavy suckers. How long did it take you to drag it out here?”
    “I don’t know. I wasn’t keeping track of time. I drove into the yard, walked up the rickety