Bea Read Online Free Page A

temptation. And temptation led to connections.
    The water stopped. There was a short silent interval, then the sound of the TV. He couldn’t hear the words, just the noise, muted as if it were coming from under a blanket.
    He read for a while. Five minutes or fifteen, he didn’t know how long. Then he became aware of another sound. He cocked his head, listening. The sound was soft and muffled. At first he thought it was coming from her TV. He got out of his chair and pressed his ear against the thin wall. Bea Adams was crying.
    “Well, I’ll be damned.” He left his post at the wall and paced the floor. He’d never have pegged her as the crying type. Women’s tears melted his heart. What in the world was he going to do?
    On his second circuit of the small room, his foot banged against the ice chest. Food. There was no telling how long it had been since she’d eaten. He was getting hungry himself.
    He opened his ice chest and surveyed his stock—two packs of crackers, one good-sized hunk of cheese, a jar of peanut butter, one loaf of aging bread, three chocolate cookies, four apples and a bottle of cheap wine. It would do.
    He made his selection, planned his approach, then left his room.
    o0o
    Bea was on a crying jag.
    She sat in the middle of her sagging bed, her head wrapped in a towel, her robe loosely knotted around her waist and her face streaked with tears. The star-crossed lovers danced across the TV screen, sharing one last moment of pleasure before the hero’s outraged father came to tear them apart. Bea cried for ill-fated love; she cried for the handsome desert prince; she cried for his beautiful slave-girl lover; and she cried for her toe. She’d cut it on the edge of a broken tile in the bathroom, and it was hurting. She hated pain.
    When she heard the knock, she thought it came from the TV. It was so old it still got black and white pictures. But the pounding sounded again, and she realized someone was at her door. She decided to ignore the knock. She didn’t know a soul in Pearcy, Arkansas.
    Then again, maybe it was the motel manager, coming to tell her to check her mattress for mice before she went to bed. Knotting her belt tighter, she went to the door.
    “Who is it?”
    “It’s me. Russ Hammond. Open up and let me in.”
    A feeling of relief swept over her. She hadn’t realized how forlorn and abandoned she’d felt until she heard the sound of a familiar voice. It didn’t matter that the voice belonged to a man she couldn’t abide. What mattered was that she was no longer alone and in pain in a strange, remote town. Granted, the pain was small, but that didn’t count.
    She wiped the tears from her face and opened the door. Russ was leaning against the door frame, holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a hunk of cheese in the other. One snakeskin boot was propped on a small ice chest.
    “I can see this is instant attraction between us, sweetheart,” he drawled. “But you’ll just have to fight it off.”
    “What took you so long, Big Tex? I was beginning to think I’d have to plow the back forty all by myself.”
    Russ laughed. He’d never have guessed that she had a playful side.
    “I thought you might be hungry,” he said.
    “I’m famished.”
    She took the wine and cheese, then held the door open with a bare foot while he brought in the ice chest. He set the chest on a small table under the window, fiddling with it longer than necessary, giving himself time to get used to being in a woman’s bedroom again.
    “You came back,” she said.
    She was standing near the bed with the overhead light shining down on her hair. She had taken the towel off, and her dark hair was still damp, as shiny and black as a bird’s wing. Traces of tears were on her cheeks.
    “I decided I was tired of traveling. It was easier to come back than look for another town.”
    Now that the initial joy of seeing a familiar face was over, Bea brought herself back under control. It wouldn’t do to let