What The Heart Wants Read Online Free

feeling a bit disappointed at his sudden departure but also glad to not feel like a bumbling child talking to a big, bad grown-up anymore.
    She stooped down next to the half-chewed seedlings. Inspecting the damage, she noticed the goat had only chewed away a few of the leaves on some of the plants but that most of them had their entire tops chewed off.
    She sighed and decided she needed to take a trip to town for some groceries and a book about herb gardening.
     
    --
    Sam hadn’t been expecting her. In all honesty, he hadn’t been expecting anyone. Mam had never had any family over and she never mentioned any relations for that matter either. Everyone had just assumed she didn’t have any family left. He went over every few days to make sure that cat had water and the doggy door was not blocked so she could get out and go hunting whenever she needed to. And while he had been looking for it all day, he had not expected that the goat would have found his way all the way to Mam’s lands. They weren’t known for wandering that far away from their mothers.
    He had walked up the side yard to enter the house through the kitchen, reaching above the doorway for the spare key that was kept there when he noticed someone standing back by the basil bed. She had her back to him in black yoga pants and an oversized red sweatshirt. Everything about her was slight and fragile. Her bones looked like they belonged to a bird. Her soft-looking straight velvety brown hair just about brushed her shoulder and was whipping around in the morning breeze.
    He was about to turn back to go to his own property before he spotted the goat. Pleased for an excuse to get closer and speak to her, Sam started out toward her. She had one of those faces that somehow managed to be both delicate yet dramatic with a small nose, slightly pointed chin, a small cupids-bow mouth and large green eyes framed with thick black lashes. She was wonderfully attractive in a fish utterly out of water kind of way.
    It wasn’t often you got to see new faces around Stars Landing. It wasn’t exactly the kind of place people point to on a map and choose to move to or even visit. And after knowing all the available women in town since you were both in diapers, the romantic possibilities were long faded.
    Not that he was imagining pretty doe-eyed Annabelle Goode as a romantic interest either. She wasn’t likely to last a week anyway.
    When she had introduced herself, she had a slight accent… barely noticeable but definable easily as New Jersian. She had probably grown up with a box of a backyard with a row of tulips being the only thing that grew other than grass. She certainly didn’t have any knowledge of herbs. And didn’t seem all that perturbed that his goat had destroyed a huge portion of her basil crops and that she was probably going to have to replant and start from scratch.
    Mam had always been a practical woman. He couldn’t help but wonder what had possessed her to leave her pride and glory to someone who hadn’t a clue how to continue it. Though knowing her as he had, he was sure she had some reasoning for it. Maybe Miss Annabelle Goode would surprise him. Maybe he was just underestimating her.
    She had a laugh like a summer breeze, light and sweet. It was contagious and when she fell on top of him and she started giggling uncontrollably, he found himself joining in. And it had been a long time since he had shared a good laugh with someone.
    He hoped maybe she had thick skin and would tough it out. He thought he would probably enjoy having her as a neighbor.
    --
    Anna sat in her car at the gas station for an embarrassingly long time before she realized there were no gas station attendants there. She shook her head at her own stupidity and got out of her car. She saw a man standing in the open door of the repair shop in a black t-shirt and grease stained blue jeans. He had short black hair and a face with sharp features. He leaned against a car he must have just