Touch the Wind Read Free

take me from you.”
    “Aren’t they?” Brad mocked bitterly. “Now that your parents know we want to get married, they’re going to try to poison you against me. They’ll pay people to tell you lies about me until you believe them. Wait and see.”
    “That’s not true. My parents aren’t like that.”
    “I suppose they are as pure and lily white as you are.” Scorn was etched in the line of his mouth, contemptuous and vaguely savage.
    “They certainly aren’t the monsters you are painting them to be,” Sheila snapped.
    “You are either blind or incredibly naïve. I—”
    The sentence wasn’t finished as an impatient male voice called, “Brad!”
    Brad didn’t attempt to disguise his annoyance at the interruption. “What do you want, Tom?” he glared at the intruder, the same co-worker as before.
    “I can’t cover for you all night,” he said. “You’d better get in there before you are fired.”
    “I’ll be right there,” Brad agreed with an irritated sigh.
    “You’d better be,” came the parting shot.
    Sheila was glad for the interruption. She couldn’t bear Brad’s sarcastic comments and his unjustified accusations against her parents. She felt sick at heart and wanted only to get away and sort things out for herself.
    “Go on in, Brad,” she murmured dispiritedly. “It’s time I left, anyway.”
    “Don’t go, Sheila.” He held her fast and placed a hand on her other shoulder to turn her back to him.
    She continued to avoid his gaze. “There isn’t any point in staying. There is nothing left to say.”
    “Sheila.” He seemed to search desperately for a reason, then laughed shortly. “I think we’ve just had our first real quarrel.”
    “I certainly didn’t start it.” She could find none of the twisted humor that Brad had in the discovery.
    “It’s miserable, isn’t it?” he said. Releasing her arm, he started to stroke her cheek in a soothing caress, but Sheila drew away from his touch, unable to make the same sudden transition from anger to affection. “I never meant for us to quarrel like this,” Brad murmured apologetically. “I just lost my head, that’s all.”
    “That was enough,” she answered tightly.
    “Sheila, look at me.” When she didn’t obey, he caught her chin and forced her to comply. His handsome, golden features pleaded for her forgiveness. “How can I make you understand the way I feel?”
    “You have,” Sheila assured him. “You’ve made it clear that you don’t believe I really love you and you think my parents are conspiring against you.”
    “No, that’s not it at all. Don’t you see?” Brad gazed earnestly into her wary eyes. “You are the only thing in my life that means anything to me, Sheila. I’m afraid of losing you. I—”
    A frown of concern creased his forehead, disappearing beneath a lock of blond hair. His sincerity reached out to invisibly touch Sheila.
    “Brad,” she whispered, responding to his plea.
    Amusement born of self-derision glittered briefly in his velvet-brown eyes. “You don’t understand, do you? You think I’m wrong to feel that way.”
    “No one can take me away from you.” A half-smile curved her lips.
    “I’ve asked you to be my wife, Sheila,” he began.
    “And I have accepted,” she reminded him.
    “Yes.” Brad nodded. “But I don’t have anything to offer you except my love. I’m asking you to give up everything for nothing.”
    His thumb was caressing her collarbone in rhythmic circles. Sheila felt the magic of his touch begin to take effect.
    “It isn’t such a bad exchange, darling.” She smiled.
    “Love can’t put a roof over our heads or food in our mouths,” he reminded her. “It takes money, which I haven’t got.”
    “Ssh!” Sheila pressed silencing fingers against his lips. “I don’t want to hear that word again.”
    Brad kissed her fingertips, then held them lightly in his hands. “I don’t want to say it again, but money is one of the unchangeable