[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.She just cried as if her heart were broken.So Laurie decided on the Falls.Maybe Morgan needed a distraction.Laurie certainly did.With one hand on the steering wheel, she reached into the glove compartment with the other for the map.Gretel had marked the route and Laurie soon saw the signs for the tollway.Laurie kept driving and Morgan kept crying until they reached the parking lot for the viewing area of Niagara Falls.The noise of the white water was thunderous, almost loud enough to drown out Morgan’s sobs.Laurie unbuckled the baby from her seat, shoved the car keys into her pocket and grabbed Morgan’s backpack and diaper bag, all the while keeping up a line of chatter designed to soothe the child.With Morgan on her back and the diaper bag over her arm, Laurie approached the fence and gasped at the sight.The water cascaded to a two-hundred foot drop sending a mist back up into the air.It was stunning.It was breathtaking.But not to Morgan.Her wailing reached new heights.Other tourists stopped snapping pictures of each other and looked at the baby.A man at the edge of the crowd stared at them.Probably wondering what torture Laurie was inflicting on the poor child.“Please, Morgan,” Laurie begged under her breath.“Please don’t cry.Look at the Falls.Aren’t they beautiful?”Laurie sank down onto a wooden bench, lifted Morgan out of the backpack and onto her lap.And Morgan continued to cry.Desperate, Laurie reached into her pocket, pulled out her car keys and rattled them in front of Morgan.The baby stopped crying instantly, grabbed the keys out of Laurie’s hand and threw them over the fence and down into the depths of the turbulent Niagara River.Laurie gasped, stood and looked with disbelief into the white water.“Morgan,” she breathed, “what have you done?” A better question was, what had Laurie done, handing her keys to a baby to play with?http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Married-ebook/dp/B005DFDJ9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1311193549&sr=1-1Read an excerpt from Wild Mustang ManBridget McCloud braced her elbows against the wooden fence and held her binoculars up to her eyes.There on a hilltop, riding a wild mustang horse, was the man she was looking for—strong, virile, powerful and sexy.Unable to restrain herself, she let out a whoop of joy.She was not a bounty hunter or a desperate spinster.She was the president and owner of Bridget McCloud Advertising, about to land her first major account with the manufacturers of Wild Mustang men’s cologne.Now that she’d found her Wild Mustang Man, nothing could stop her.She grinned to herself, wishing her administrative assistant and best friend Kate was there to share the excitement and the view.Not that she would have surrendered her binoculars.Not just yet.Silhouetted against the blue Nevada sky, wild horse and rider moved as one.Bridget could almost hear the rhythmic fall of the hoofbeats, feel the muscles ripple under the man’s denim shirt and smell.yes, she could almost smell the tangy, masculine scent of Wild Mustang men’s cologne.With a sigh of ecstasy, she let the binoculars fall against her chest and lifted her Nikon from its case, pressed the shutter and filled her memory card with shots of her future Mustang Man.She never saw the bicycle bearing down on her from out of nowhere.If she had she would have leaped out of the way before it plowed into her and knocked her to the ground.The bike crashed onto the dirt road, the rider thrown to the side.Bridget staggered to her feet, dazed and bruised, head pounding.The daredevil rider, all four feet of him, was sitting in the dirt, staring at his skinned knees.“Sorry,” he said, wide blue eyes looking up at her as she limped toward him.“Didn’t know anybody was there.”“Same here,” she acknowledged.“But I think you got the worst of it.You or your bike,” she said, noticing the smashed spokes, the twisted handlebars.“I better take you home and get you bandaged up.”“I am home,” he said, waving at the fields on the other side of the fence.Painfully he got to his feet, but his knees buckled and Bridget caught him in her arms before he lost his balance again.His dusty hair tickled her nose.She felt his body stiffen like a wounded animal, before he yanked himself out of her arms.“I’m okay,” he said, his upper lip stiff with pride.But his voice shook ever so slightly.“I can crawl through the fence and be back before my dad knows I’m gone.”Bridget frowned at his stubborn determination, more than a little concerned about the cut above his eye and the blood oozing from his knees.“What if I crawl through the fence with you and make sure you get there?” she offered.He shrugged his narrow shoulders, and his teeth chattered.Bridget wondered if there were more injuries than met the eye or if he was that afraid of his father.“Okay, but we gotta hurry.If my dad finds out about this he’ll have my hide.”“What’s left of it,” Bridget muttered, giving him a worried glance as she followed him, squeezing herself through the slats in the fence.The two of them staggered up a sagebrush-covered hill toward a sprawling ranch house, two steps forward, one step back as Bridget’s binoculars bounced against her chest, and her camera case swung back and forth from her shoulder.She began to wonder who was helping whom.The further they walked, the stronger the boy got, and the weaker Bridget felt.Oh, to be young again, she thought, as he pulled her forward, his small grubby hand in hers.Oh, to be wearing sensible shoes instead of sandals.She wasn’t married, though she’d always thought she would be by now with a child of her own.Not a daredevil boy who raced a bike in defiance of his parents’ wishes, but a sweet obedient little girl dressed in ruffles.She sighed.Because it was not to be.She’d seen her plans for marriage and a family go down the drain this past year and was proceeding full steam ahead on the next best thing—her career.She couldn’t deny, however, that the stubby, grubby little hand in hers brought a rush of maternal and protective feelings she thought she’d successfully buried, even though she, with her bruises, was in no shape to protect anyone, especially not this tough little kid here.“How old are you?” Bridget gasped, the hot dry air searing her lungs as she trudged slowly upward.“Five and a half.Going on six.” He turned to look up at her, squinting in the bright sunlight.“How ‘bout you?”“Thirty-one.”His blue eyes widened in amazement “You don’t look that old.”“Thank you,” Bridget said with a reluctant smile.“My dad’s older than you.”“Really? Is he around, by any chance?”The boy pointed to the hill behind the house.“Out riding.”“What about your mom?”He pointed up at the cloudless blue sky.“She’s in heaven.”Bridget was stunned into momentary silence and her leaden feet stopped moving.“Come on,” he urged, almost jerking her arm out of its socket.She picked up her feet, wiped the perspiration off her forehead and forced herself to move.This was no time for gratuitous sympathy.Besides, she had no idea what to say to a boy whose mom is in heaven.This was a time to change the subject.“Does your dad ride wild mustangs?” she asked, pausing to catch her breath.“How’d you know?”“If his name is Gentry, I’ve heard about him.That’s why I’m here.I want to talk to him.”“‘Bout a horse?”Bridget refrained from saying, No, it’s ‘bout a men’s cologne.This wasn’t the time or place to broach the subject of his father as a male model, so she just nodded.And thanked God the large, stone ranch house was now only steps away
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]