Deadly Beginnings Read Online Free

driven away thinking of the woman with sad eyes. And the dick she’d been with whom he should have punched. He’d seen them talking from inside the hotel before he’d walked out.
    Was that it? Was it her who made him want more? That one moment, that one dance?
    Or was it when Paul had gotten hurt?
    He’d been fine until Paul, a friend, had been in the accident. Not a bad accident, but he’d been hurt nonetheless. Jock had driven the man home from the hospital and his wife had met them at the door. Pregnant and another one hiding behind her. Jock had watched as she worried and fussed over Paul, who had his arm in a sling and a bandage over his forehead.
    Jock realized then what was missing.
    Someone who cared.
    Someone he could care for. He’d stood in that living room near the sofa with bright orange flowers on it and watched as Paul’s wife had stressed and worried over him, and he’d seen how Paul worried that she was worried.
    Jock realized for all his wealth, for all his success, he didn’t have the simplest, most basic of all needs met.
    He wanted that . . . a life with someone.
    He wanted the woman who worried about him, whom he worried about because he didn’t want her to worry. He wanted this fictional woman to start a family with him. A family he could pass the business onto one day. He wanted more than a couple of kids because life had already taught him fate was fickle and could take loved ones away in the blink of an eye.
    He’d thought of this woman for so long, he wasn’t even dating. Which defeated the whole damned purpose, didn’t it? He knew it did. But he wanted more.
    He knew the women from the country club, knew their parents. Knew who wanted him in their family. Or rather, would love to have their families and legacies joined.
    And in all his musings, that nameless woman in his mind had red hair, freckles across her nose, and emerald green eyes he could almost make smile.
    He’d tried to find out who she was, but his friend didn’t know. He could have gone and found her, looked harder for her, but maybe it was best he stayed out of it.
    Or maybe he’d find her still and toss the doctor aside and . . . and what? Who the hell knew.
    So here he was this weekend, on the lake alone because none of his friends wanted his sorry ass around, and that was fine with him. He needed to figure out what the hell he wanted to do. He didn’t want to read any more Yeats, he thought, looking over at his slim book.
    He needed to get laid.
    He needed something to do.
    He was not some lovesick jackass like his brother Broderick, who was all about asking that Dainburg woman to marry him. Jock had begged him to wait until after law school. If the woman was any woman at all, she’d wait for him, let him get established. As they were both Kinncaids, Rick had looked at him like Jock had lost his damned mind.
    What his brother was going to do was still up in the air. God forbid Rick listen to him.
    Rick’s reply had only been, “Of course, as you are married with three, I can see taking advice from you. Who are the latest contenders for the slot of wife? Or would that be ‘slut’ with the women you hang out with?”
    His brother had invited him up this weekend to New York, but he didn’t want to head up there. Instead, he’d taken a chance that nurse Rainey had known what she was talking about and booked a cabin here at Deep Creek Lake. He hadn’t been before and realized he’d been missing out. Normally, his family had taken trips across country, or to the coast. The Hamptons, Chesapeake Bay, Vegas, Nassau. Deep Creek Lake, no.
    Rather nice up here. Maybe he’d just buy the cabin and keep it as a place to get away to, tell no one about it.
    Reaching out, he picked up a perfectly flat stone and let it fly over the water, watching as it skipped. Small ripples from the rock caressed the shore. Some movement in the trees caught his attention.
    Bright red hair winked in the sunlight as she stepped clear of the