Nightsong Read Online Free Page A

o’clock?”
    “Thank you. I’ll be there.” With a wave of his hand, he opened the door and left the bookstore. The winter air danced about him, and he pulled up the collar of his coat for extra warmth. But the cold seemed to be inside him, and he knew it had nothing to do with temperature or wind chill.
    It had everything to do with Elleny Damon.
    All right, so he’d lied to her, claimed a friendship with her late husband, a man he’d never met. He’d done worse things in his life, and in this situation there really wasn’t another choice. It wasn’t his fault that she was too trusting for her own good, and he’d be damned if he knew why he should feel guilty for taking advantage of her.
    But he did. And he had an uneasy suspicion that things could get complicated
    Very, very complicated.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Phillip approached the street corner with a reluctance that he couldn’t quite understand. There was no logical reason for the sluggish pace of his footsteps, no explanation for his lack of enthusiasm for the afternoon ahead. This could be the break he’d been hoping for, the culmination of months of preparation. Yet the excitement he should have been feeling was noticeably absent.
    A picket fence, once white but now a weathered ivory, stretched beside the sidewalk, and he measured his steps against the slats. His gaze explored the turreted angles of the Victorian-style house that sprawled in bygone elegance across the corner lot. It was fitting, he supposed, that she should live in such a house.
    Diminutive, dainty Elleny looked every bit the part of Cedar Springs’s reigning belle. Phillip felt certain that if the town had been located further south, she would have been addressed by all the residents as “Miss Elleny.” Everyone spoke of her with obvious affection and respect. But considering that everyone spoke of Mark Damon in the same manner, Phillip didn’t give too much credence to their judgment.
    Stopping before the gate, he studied the wide, shaded porch and diagnosed the funny feeling in his stomach as nervous tension.
    Sunday dinner. It had a disconcerting ring to it, somehow, and brought to mind phrases like “I want you to meet my parents” or “My mother is going to love you.”
    Not that he believed Elleny’s invitation had been anything more than a courtesy extended, but there was something uncomfortably cozy about sitting down at a table covered with freshly laundered linen, platters of fried chicken, and garden-grown vegetables. And he’d give odds that was the scene awaiting him on the other side of the big bay window.
    Annoyed by his imaginative lapse in perspective, he absently jangled the loose quarters in the pocket of his coat and then shook his head in rueful acknowledgment of his action. In less than a week he’d become so acclimatized to the rural atmosphere that he never went anywhere without the correct change for a cup of coffee. Places like Cedar Springs could get a grip on a man, make him start believing that life was as tranquil and easygoing as a Sunday afternoon.
    Women like Elleny Damon could get a grip on a man, too, make him start believing in houses with picket fences and clean, homey smells. Phillip brought his chin up with a jerk.
    He didn’t believe in such things, didn’t want to believe in them, and he hadn’t lived this much of his life only to be taken in now by a disarming smile. It was all in the way one looked at things, he reasoned. After all, Sunday dinner by any other name was just a luncheon. And this afternoon, this time spent with Elleny, was simply a means to an end.
    A sound, a quiet creaking drew his attention down to meet the steady, bright blue gaze of a child who was perched on the opposite side of the gate. Framed by two ivory colored pickets, the boy’s face was narrowed into eyes, puckish nose, and a somewhat dirty mouth, with the overall effect topped by blond hair that resembled a bird’s nest of straw. Skinny arms were bare