Sari Robins Read Online Free

that she had to spin to get out of their way. The top book in Tess’s arms went sliding and she careened forward, trying to keep the book from toppling. But her toe caught on her skirts, tripping her and sending her pitching forward with the prized books hurling airborne before her.
    “Oh no!” she cried as the books tumbled in a series of thuds just as she landed hard on all fours, her palms and knees smarting.
    “Are you all right?” a male voice inquired from down the hallway, accompanied by footsteps approaching fast. “Can I help you?”
    “I’m fine,” Tess replied, not bothering to look up at the owner of the large black Hessians now standing before her. Her only thoughts were for the volumes splayed open and the fear of bent pages. Grabbing the closest books as quickly as possible, she checked and righted the wounded pages.
    “Tess? Is that you?”
    Tess’s head jerked up. She found herself staring into a face so achingly familiar, her stomach lurched. “Heath?”
    His thick hair had grown longer since she’d last seen him, hanging just past his squared jaw and around his white collar like dark ribbons. He had whiskers now, thin though, almost as if someone had skillfully painted them on the underside of his pronounced cheekbones. His skin was a shade darker as well; lost was the sallowness that had hauntedhis flesh when he’d fought whooping cough as a child.
    As a lad, Heath’s features had been pleasant, with his attractively sloped nose, pink even lips, and steely dark eyes. In manhood, well, “a biscuit” was what Tess’s friend Bonnie would call Heath Bartlett if she met him today. “A biscuit” dressed as if he’d shopped on Bond Street his whole life, even though Tess knew better.
    Lowering her head, Tess continued collecting the books, although now her mind wasn’t on the injured pages but on the wounded remains of her life.
    “Uh, hello. Uh, what are you doing here?” She didn’t mean to sound so tetchy, but she hadn’t expected to see Heath. Hadn’t expected to face him for years, if ever. He was a part of her past better forgotten. Buried, only to be examined in her later years, when she would revisit her mistakes, and he would be but one of many. But to run into him now, when she was on her knees dressed like a scullery maid? Somewhere the gods were laughing, and inside Tess cursed their delight.
    “It’s good to see you, too.” Heath crouched down and retrieved the books farthest from Tess’s reach.
    She kept her eye averted from his handsome face and found her gaze drawn to his gloveless hands. His long, slender fingers gathered the old volumes with astonishing gentleness. Watching those cream-colored masculine hands somehow roused a warm, tickling sensation deep in her middle.
    Tearing her gaze away, Tess swallowed. “Ah, sorry.I just didn’t expect to see you. And especially not at the end of a graceless tumble.”
    “You always did prefer four legs to two.”
    Frowning, she straightened. “How dare—”
    “Deiniol, wasn’t that your mount’s name?”
    Tess blinked, tensing as her fingers curled around the hard-edged books. “I can’t believe you remembered. That must have been over…ten years ago.”
    His burly shoulders shrugged. “He was a fine steed, and how can I forget when he dropped you in the pond? You were soaked from head to toe.”
    Tess relaxed; Heath plainly was not referring to her article in the Girard Street Crier .
    Heath smiled, exposing white, even teeth. “I’ll never forget how your skin stained to the same color as your raspberry riding dress.”
    Talking about their childhood, before things had turned sour, eased something inside Tess. Still, she couldn’t meet his eye. “You look well…” Handsome as sin, actually.
    “I’d like to say the same for you.” He touched the tip of her bonnet. “But I can hardly see you beneath that balloon on your head.”
    Shoving her floppy bonnet out of her eyes, she muttered, “You must charm