Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance Read Free Page B

down to kiss her and that her breasts had felt generous pressing against his chest. He’d seen honesty reflectedin her eyes and felt the warmth of skin that, in the shadows, was the color of honey. She’d been more of an imagined impression based on touch and smell, until that impression crystallized into a woman whose lips softened and responded to his kiss.
    Now in the lighted parking area he could see that her short hair, peeking out from beneath her cap, was light brown rather than blond. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and her face had the warm, healthy color of a woman who spent time outdoors. She was looking at him with an expression that he couldn’t identify.
    “My father couldn’t come,” she said quietly. “My father is dead. And you aren’t a criminal. You’re just worried about someone you care for.”
    He felt a twinge of guilt for his choice of words and started to say he was sorry, but she cut him off.
    “Jeanie must be a terribly insensitive person,” Sarah couldn’t help commenting. “I don’t understand why she didn’t tell you herself if she wanted to marry your friend.”
    “Because I wouldn’t have approved of the marriage, and they both knew it. It’s too soon for Jeanie to make that kind of decision. When she left for Spain she was still hurting from an affair gone bad.… Damn! Where’s my Silver Girl? Ah, no, not her, too.”
    Sarah thought he was going to yell. Somehow she knew that Asa Canyon was a man who didn’t cry. “Please don’t be so distressed,”Sarah consoled him. “You may not understand it now, but you’ll have to look on your girl running away as happening for the best.”
    “My girl?” He laughed. “She couldn’t leave on her own. She had to have help.” He slapped his thigh, then groaned. “My pants and my keys—they’re both gone.”
    “The note said that she and your friend Mike are in love. You can’t fight an emotion strong enough to force him into this kind of action.”
    “Mike wouldn’t be caught dead in my truck. He drives a BMW. But you’re right. He took her all right, so I couldn’t follow. You’d think he’d have at least told me where he left her, since he’s so good at letter writing. It’s bad enough that he’s taken Jeanie, but my Silver Girl? That’s a low blow.”
    Sarah realized that Silver Girl was not the woman, but his truck. She giggled, half in relief and half in disbelief.
    “You have a very strange sense of humor,” Asa growled. “Do you have a car to match?”
    Her sense of humor might be strange, he concluded, as he stared at her, but her lips, still curved in a smile, were nice. Wide, full and honest, they matched her open face. Everything about Sarah Wilson said that what you see is what you get. And honesty was a characteristic that was in short supply in his life at the moment.
    If he weren’t so concerned about Jeanie, he just might—no. Women were rarely what they seemed and he’d sworn long ago not to try to figure them out. He glanced at Sarah. Shedidn’t seem worried. In fact, he had a sneaking suspicion that she was the kind of “girl next door” who could be a coconspirator, the kind who didn’t scream when you put a frog in her lunch box. But that girl-next-door look didn’t fit the kiss they’d just shared, or the open way she’d participated.
    “Do I have a car? Not a car,” Sarah was saying. “A van, and you might say it matches my sense of humor. Why?”
    “I’m commandeering it. Let’s go!”
    “Oh, good. A police chase. I thought that only happened in the movies! If you have in mind tearing through the city streets, I feel it only fair to warn you that the fastest he’ll go is 54 miles per hour. Anything more and he rebels.”
    “He? You have a car you refer to as he?”
    “I do. His name is Henry. Helpful Henry. You call your truck Girl, why can’t I call my van Henry?”
    “Where is it?” Then he saw it. The van had once been a bright fire-truck red. Now it was