Broken Road Read Online Free Page B

place to latch onto Devil to lift her up. Finally he seemed to decide on her forearms and pulled her up to her feet.
       “Bit of a butterfingers are you?” he asked with a straight face, but his eyes were dancing with humor.
       “I-I just heard someone singing and I thought to see who it was in Lilla’s room,” she stammered.
       He eyed her and saw that she was only wearing his shirt and nothing else. He raised a brow and she blushed.
       “What are you doing in here with Lilla?” Devil returned sharply as she blushed about the shirt. The pants had been to o hot to sleep in and the shirt was big enough to swim in with the way it ended at her knees. There was no reason for him to get her such a look.
       “She wakes up this time every morning and is a bit fussy. I was trying to get her to sleep again. Why are you up?” he quipped.
       “Going to the bathroom, if you must know. And I’m sure that your bedroom isn’t on this floor so next time just wake me up and I’ll take care of her.”
       “I didn’t want to wake you and I’ve been taking care of her the past month. I don’t need your help,” he snapped.
       “She is mine to take care of!” Devil shot back.
       “She is mine to take care of too while you two are here! And what could a kid with no parents like you do for her?” The moment the words left his mouth he knew that it had been the wrong thing to say. Winthrop watched as Lilla’s mother turned back into herself and quietly step away from him as far as he could.
       “I may not have parents, but at least I am nice enough to people. I don’t look for faults in them. I may not be the best mother for Lilla, but I am all she has to now. You are not our family. A women hater like you could never understand what family is.” Devil went over to the crib and press a kiss to Lilla’s forehead before leaving the room. She paused to the door way and cast him a chilling glare. “I can tell you now that no woman is ever going to want you in her life.”
        Devil turned away from the stupid man and went back to her room. This wasn’t how she had planned to start raising Lilla. But damn the man who had called her useless! She had survived death more then once and knew her way around the feeling of a lost child like a pro. She disliked the man so much that she couldn’t even think of how her sweet older sister could have loved such a cold and unfeeling man.
       “It’d be better if he wasn’t Lilla’s father,” she muttered and sat down on the bed.
       The room she had been given was so big that even the giant canopy bed in the center of it didn’t seem to take up much space, but like all the rooms down stairs it was empty. There were chairs over by the gallery glass doors that led out onto a little balcony over the front doors and a wash stand in the far corner next to them. A dainty Victorian lady’s desk made of dark maple was set against the other wall and a matching seat sat under the desk top. A wardrobe lined the wall next to the bed’s left hand side as well. It was beautifully styled, but there was no mark of the last room’s owner. The only thing to light the room was a candle holder on the small bedside table to the right of the bed.
       Devil took a look at the floor. And just as she thought it was made of old polished dark oak boards like the stairs that led downstairs and up.
       It would seem that no else lived in the house for she had seen no other soul walk into the house other then Mr. Canter and Lilla.
       “So he must be alone too now since Wylde is gone,” she sighed and rolled onto the bed hugging a pillow. “Maybe he has always been alone here. Or maybe he has a father who was less then the ideal dad.”
       Just like mine, she thought sourly. But just maybe we might be able to stick it out for a while. I owe it to Wylde the give Lilla a real home. Maybe I should look for a house around here. And with that thought she sighed