Love and Fury: The Coltrane Saga, Book 4 Read Online Free

Travis in the past, something Kitty knew nothing about. Kitty asked no questions, for she wanted no answers.
    Alaina’s scheme to disrupt Travis’s home and take Dani away from him succeeded after a year of hell for everybody. Within that year, Dani changed from a sweet, happy, obedient child to a willful, spiteful, complaining brat. Kitty was at her wit’s end. Their lives had become unbearable, and the day Kitty scolded Dani for something and Dani slapped her, Travis sent word to Alaina that she had won. Perhaps, he reasoned to Kitty, the child would be better off growing up around her mother’s people in Kentucky.
    The day Alaina came to the ranch, gloating, to take Dani away, John Travis’s temper exploded. It was a powerful temper, even at his young age. He screamed at Alaina that she was taking his little sister away and he hated her. He told Alaina that she was the reason Dani had turned into such a hellion in the first place. Dani, protective of the aunt who had spoiled her so terribly, turned on John Travis in a rage, kicking and screaming. Kitty and Alaina had to pull the two apart, and John Travis’s last words to his sister were, “I hate you! I hope I never see you again!”
    “I hope you die, John Travis!” Dani screamed in return.
    John Travis still carried a tiny scar at the corner of his left eye, the result of that fight, and to the present day, Kitty could not recall his ever mentioning his sister.
    The painful memories tore at her, and everything she was feeling showed on her face, as it always did. Travis pulled her closer as she said, “Maybe Dani would like another chance, too, Travis. It’s been a long time. Maybe she grew away from Alaina’s influence.”
    “If she had, we’d have heard from her,” he said grimly. His eyes narrowed as he mused, “She’s living in the South of France now, but that’s all I know. When Alaina married that French count she’d been stalking, she and Dani went to live on his estate. I know no more than that about my own daughter.”
    “Can you get an address? You can write and let her know when we’ll arrive in Paris.”
    He nodded. “The bank in Silver Butte has it. You know I’ve sent money all these years, though Dani never once acknowledged it.”
    Kitty squeezed his hand. “Maybe things will be different. She’s older now. She must have seen through Alaina by this time.”
    He said nothing to that, and she knew he was trying not to hope for too much.
    “Now then,” she said jovially, dressing quickly and getting to her feet, “let’s make ourselves presentable and go tell our son the news.”
    Travis reached for her hand and roughly pulled her down beside him again. Rolling on top of her, he whispered huskily, “That was just the appetizer, my dear. Now let’s devour the main course.”
    Kitty succumbed once more to the love and passion she felt with every beat of her heart.

Chapter Two
    France
    July, 1889
    Staring, mesmerized, into the gilt-edged mirror, Gavin Mason studied his reflection.
    He liked what he saw.
    Average height, a physique accented neither by obesity nor by thinness…he could find no fault with his body.
    Gavin smoothed his blond hair back from his forehead, frowning. Curls. Little-boy curls, tousled and mussed. Damn it, how he hated them. Because of those blasted curls, he hardly looked his twenty-five years, even with the mustache.
    He hated the color of his hair as much as he hated the curls. It reminded him of egg yolks, bright yellow. Still, women liked the shade—and the riot of curls. Well, things weren’t all bad, he guessed.
    He leaned forward to brush a tiny speck from the corner of an eyelid. Blue eyes. Once, one of the many demimondaines he had encountered in his lustful life told him in a fit of anger that he had eyes like a snake—a blue-eyed snake—and that he’d surely been sired in hell by Satan himself.
    A sneer touched his thin lips. Snake. He liked that, liked it a lot. Some of the men he