Broken Road Read Online Free Page A

to stay here for long and I have some people waiting for me in town…”
       Devil had stopped talking as he rose out of his chair and came to to wer over her. She swallowed passed a dry throat.
       “I said that you and the baby will stay here. You aren’t going anywhere,” he said, eyes glinting like steel.
       Devil flinched slightly at the looked directed in them at her.
       “You don’t have a home do you?” Mr. Canter raised an eyebrow in question.
       Devil frowned slightly. “Well no, but-”
       He continued on as if he hadn’t heard a word she said. “And what about your parents? You most likely ran away from home and you’re still too young to have a child.”
       “Now you wait a moment-” Devil said rising to the bait.
       “And then there is no way in hell you’re taking her away from me without a fight. She’s the only family I have now too,” he finished with a growl.
          Devil crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her proud chin a notch. “If you knew anything about me you wouldn’t have said half the crap that just sprouted from your mouth. You want answers? Fine, you can all the answers you want, but you better shut up afterward about it. I have no home, I’m eighteen years old, and both of my parents are dead and more then five years gone. I raised myself since I was basically five, so I can care for Lilla better then you. Not only that but she is the only family I have too, since my only living sister is missing!” She hated how her voice cracked and how the tears pored over from her eyes. She hugged her arms around herself and squeezed her eyes closed to block the nightmares of her childhood. She was not a crier!
       Winthrop felt so many things at once that it was making him dizzy, but he tried to sort them out. Relief was the one that she was of legal age, worry over the pain she seemed to be suffering alone that he had caused, and guilt at baiting her after all she had been through this night.
       For the first time in his life he felt like an ass and he didn’t care for the feeling at all, it burned in his gut.
       “Damn,” he muttered and gave into what his body was telling him to do. He went over to her and folded her into his arms as gently as he knew how.
       She stiffened at the bold contact for a long moment and slowly let her entire body relax against his. Finally she gave in, bawling her eyes out on his chest.
       Winthrop forced himself not to react to the press of her body against his. And he almost didn’t have enough will power to do even that.
       Sweet heaven she didn’t even have a bra on!
       So he bit his lip and held her as she cried. Each and every tear tore down a little of the walls around his heart and he was helpless to stop it, for he was the one to start all this.
       He smiled grimly. He was in a hell of his own making. How fitting it was for a woman hater to have both a baby and her young mother to be thrown his way.
     
    …
     
    Devil had had a rough day, followed by a rough night. She had awakened for the fourth time by five o’clock and just decided to stay awake. After a quick trip to the bathroom she passed by Lilla’s room and heard someone humming one of her newest song from her track that had been released only a few months before. The deep husky male voice was humming “Come back home” and who ever it was , was doing a damn good job of humming it right. So Devil slipped over to the doorway and peered in.
       To her utter shock it was Mr. Canter who sang her song, not only that, but he was smiling !
       Without realizing it she tripped over the door jam and fell face first onto the floor. When she looked up through her hair and she saw the taken aback expression on his face. She scrambled to get to her feet only managing to get caught up in the toys on the floor, this time landing squarely on her butt.
       By now Mr. Canter had put Lilla back to the crib and was trying to find a good