A Vow to Love Read Online Free
Author: Sherryl Woods
charming the daylights out of all of them. "It is not--" she screeched emphatically, only to have the words cut off by the slamming of the door behind them.
It took a supreme effort, but she convinced herself that no one could possibly be fooled by his lame remark, that even now police cars were speeding to her rescue.
Hopefully, he wouldn't kill her before they arrived, she thought just as she was dumped in a sprawling heap onto the sofa. She glanced up. Indeed, the expression in his eyes was filled with murderous intent. For the first time she stopped being mad and started to get just the teensiest bit nervous.
Maybe Brandon and everyone else had been right to worry about whether she knew what she was getting herself into by moving to Boston. She found the unfamiliar flash of self-doubt extremely irritating. No, dammit! A twenty-five-year-old woman had every right to follow her own dreams. If that meant burying herself in a stuffy laboratory at Harvard while she pursued a thesis for her Ph.D in English, she couldn't imagine why it was anyone else's concern.
Some women preferred to concentrate on intellectual pursuits that might one day make a difference in society. Some women just weren't cut out for romance. Look at her Aunt Kate. Well, that was a bad example. Aunt Kate had been a strong, independent, powerful lawyer. Now she carried a diaper bag in addition to her briefcase. Talk about ruining an image! Tough talk and baby talk were incompatible, it seemed to Penny. But the way Aunt Kate used to be...now there was a role model. Why couldn't her mother and especially her grandfather, Brandon Halloran, see that she wasn't burying herself in a lab because she was afraid of life?
Someday, though, they'd be proud of her when she was off in Sweden or Switzerland or wherever it was that they handed out the Nobel prizes. She hadn't quite decided yet if she wanted the award to be for curing cancer or for literature. It occurred to her that quite possibly that was why her entire family was in such an uproar.
She could just imagine their reaction when they heard about some damnable man invading her apartment during her very first week in town. That thought gave her the bravado to launch another attack on the unsuspecting man, who was staring out the window, probably to make sure that the police weren't rolling in before he finished up whatever mayhem he intended.
Without hesitating to consider the consequences of riling him further, she bounded across the room. She leaped up, looped her legs around his waist and one arm around his neck in what she thought was a fairly effective choke hold. To her astonishment and regret, he shook her off as if she were no more than a pesky nuisance.
"Do that again and we're going to have one serious problem on our hands," he warned.
He muttered something more under his breath. Penny'd always been taught that whispering in the presence of others was downright rude, but she was relatively certain that she should be glad in this instance that she hadn't heard what he'd said. If the furious sparks in his eyes were anything to go by, she had a feeling he hadn't been welcoming her to Boston.
Sam Roberts stared pensively out the window and tried to get a grip on his temper. He had grown up tough, always lashing out furiously and without thought. It had kept him in hot water most of his adolescence. Raised by his sister, he'd rebelled against everything. It sometimes astonished him that Dana had put up with all his garbage--defending him, bailing him out of trouble, loving him. For her sake, he'd finally learned to control the temper that was currently being put to an extreme test.
He struggled to stay calm as he considered the promise that had gotten him into this fix, a promise made to Brandon Halloran, the man who'd really turned his life around. Granddad Brandon had treated him with the kind of respect that a man felt compelled to earn. He owed the old man. So when Brandon had called a few
It took a supreme effort, but she convinced herself that no one could possibly be fooled by his lame remark, that even now police cars were speeding to her rescue.
Hopefully, he wouldn't kill her before they arrived, she thought just as she was dumped in a sprawling heap onto the sofa. She glanced up. Indeed, the expression in his eyes was filled with murderous intent. For the first time she stopped being mad and started to get just the teensiest bit nervous.
Maybe Brandon and everyone else had been right to worry about whether she knew what she was getting herself into by moving to Boston. She found the unfamiliar flash of self-doubt extremely irritating. No, dammit! A twenty-five-year-old woman had every right to follow her own dreams. If that meant burying herself in a stuffy laboratory at Harvard while she pursued a thesis for her Ph.D in English, she couldn't imagine why it was anyone else's concern.
Some women preferred to concentrate on intellectual pursuits that might one day make a difference in society. Some women just weren't cut out for romance. Look at her Aunt Kate. Well, that was a bad example. Aunt Kate had been a strong, independent, powerful lawyer. Now she carried a diaper bag in addition to her briefcase. Talk about ruining an image! Tough talk and baby talk were incompatible, it seemed to Penny. But the way Aunt Kate used to be...now there was a role model. Why couldn't her mother and especially her grandfather, Brandon Halloran, see that she wasn't burying herself in a lab because she was afraid of life?
Someday, though, they'd be proud of her when she was off in Sweden or Switzerland or wherever it was that they handed out the Nobel prizes. She hadn't quite decided yet if she wanted the award to be for curing cancer or for literature. It occurred to her that quite possibly that was why her entire family was in such an uproar.
She could just imagine their reaction when they heard about some damnable man invading her apartment during her very first week in town. That thought gave her the bravado to launch another attack on the unsuspecting man, who was staring out the window, probably to make sure that the police weren't rolling in before he finished up whatever mayhem he intended.
Without hesitating to consider the consequences of riling him further, she bounded across the room. She leaped up, looped her legs around his waist and one arm around his neck in what she thought was a fairly effective choke hold. To her astonishment and regret, he shook her off as if she were no more than a pesky nuisance.
"Do that again and we're going to have one serious problem on our hands," he warned.
He muttered something more under his breath. Penny'd always been taught that whispering in the presence of others was downright rude, but she was relatively certain that she should be glad in this instance that she hadn't heard what he'd said. If the furious sparks in his eyes were anything to go by, she had a feeling he hadn't been welcoming her to Boston.
Sam Roberts stared pensively out the window and tried to get a grip on his temper. He had grown up tough, always lashing out furiously and without thought. It had kept him in hot water most of his adolescence. Raised by his sister, he'd rebelled against everything. It sometimes astonished him that Dana had put up with all his garbage--defending him, bailing him out of trouble, loving him. For her sake, he'd finally learned to control the temper that was currently being put to an extreme test.
He struggled to stay calm as he considered the promise that had gotten him into this fix, a promise made to Brandon Halloran, the man who'd really turned his life around. Granddad Brandon had treated him with the kind of respect that a man felt compelled to earn. He owed the old man. So when Brandon had called a few
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