Once Touched Read Online Free Page B

Were it not for the sling holding his folded arm securely about his middle, she’d have pegged the tall, gaunt man as a junkie battling the shakes. He walked with the brittle care of someone three times his age. A few feet behind him, a porter in a red cap pushed a loaded trolley.
    “Ethan Saunders?” A part of her hoped she was mistaken. The other, wiser and sadder part knew she wasn’t.
    He stopped and looked at her, then released the lips he’d been pressing in a thin line. “Yeah.” A second passed. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Quinn. Quinn Knowles,” she added when his expression remained blank.
    “The daughter.” He made the connection in a low, gravelly voice that sounded as if it hadn’t been used in months.
    “The one and only.”
    He looked far from impressed, didn’t even bother to give her a once-over, which was interesting since men invariably checked her out and then started grinning like monkeys within seconds of meeting her. Their reaction was off-putting at best, creepy at worst. So Ethan Saunders was either smarter than most of his kind or—
    Quinn was presented with the correct explanation when Ethan abruptly lurched to the side and began heaving the contents of his stomach into the base of an artificial ficus tree. He was too sick to notice whether she resembled Miss Universe or Chewbacca.
    A few seconds later, Ethan straightened, looking just as gray as before. Because there was no use pretending otherwise, she said, “You’re a real mess, aren’t you?”
    This earned her a grunt. “I’ll live.”
    “I hope so. I like funerals even less than weddings.”
    His brows snapped together in surprise. Or maybe annoyance. He probably hadn’t expected her to joke about death.
    Well, it was too late to reform her warped sense of humor. And somehow she sensed he’d appreciate her pity even less.
    “Like I said, I’ll live.”
    “Okay, then, we have an almost-three-hour drive ahead of us, so we’d better get a move on. My truck’s parked in a nearby lot. I’ll go get it and pull up outside in five minutes. There are benches.” Turning to the porter, she said, “I’ll tip you double if you wait until I return with the car.”
    —
    The minute they reached the curb, Ethan dragged his wallet from the rear pocket of his jeans, which now hung loosely on his bony frame, and paid off the redcap—with that double tip. He didn’t need a babysitter, damn it. Alone, he leaned against a metal sign in order not to do a face-plant into the sidewalk. The autumn air felt raw as a slap but good. He’d made it. Now he just had to keep what little remained in his stomach inside it until he reached Silver Creek Ranch, where he hoped to be left in blessed peace until he figured out what to do with the rest of his life.
    A dusty red truck pulled up alongside him. The girl jumped out of it. He still couldn’t think of Quinn Knowles as anything but a little girl. Of his memories of Silver Creek Ranch, the ones of her as a pigtailed kid stood out.
    She’d been kind of cute, with a cowboy hat that was a couple of sizes too big for her. It used to slip forward, covering her face, and he would tip it back up just to see how long it took before it slid down again. Each time he adjusted it, she’d give him a gap-toothed grin. She’d been one happy kid on the back of that shaggy Shetland.
    Because his parents had drilled home the fact that he was extremely lucky to be riding out with the Knowleses and learning how to cut cattle from the herd and rope them, he was okay with leading her around—it gave him a chance to study the horses in the corrals and pastures. He’d lift her onto the saddle, guide her pink cowboy boots into the stirrups, and walk by her pony’s side while she chattered to the pony as if he were her best friend. No matter how long they walked, she never wanted to get off that pony. What had she called it again?
    He hated that his memory, like his body, kept failing him.
    He frowned as he