A Husband Worth Waiting For

“Quiet!” Jed snapped his fingers. “Sit!”

The dog sat.

With soundless steps, Jedidiah headed along the shadowy corridor to the kitchen. Ahead, the kitchen door was ajar; the room in darkness.

He halted just outside the doorway and listened. He heard nothing but the faint hum of the fridge. The room had that ‘empty’ feel to it.

Nerves jumping nevertheless, he snapped on the light.

Everything looked as it had when he’d left.

He opened the fridge door. And was about to close it when he noticed that yesterday’s leftover soup was gone.

Frowning, he opened the dishwasher.

The soup bowl was in the lower rack. Along with two soup plates and two side plates. Two spoons and a knife were slotted in the cutlery rack.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins. Someone had been here. Had eaten in his kitchen—

From the foyer came the sound of Max growling. A low, menacing sound, deep in the animal’s throat, a growl that stirred the hair at Jed’s nape.

He headed back along the corridor, keeping close to the wall.

Max was in his line of sight.

The intruder was not.

The Lab’s hackles were up, and he was staring at somebody Jed couldn’t see. Max’s fangs gleamed white as he pulled his mouth back in a hostile snarl.

Warily, Jed edged forward, inch by inch, till he could peek around the corner—

The intruder was a woman. And one he had never seen before.

His astonished gaze flicked over her. Young and attractive, the stranger had a petite figure swamped in an oversize white shirt that billowed out over a pair of jeans. Her hair was honey-blond and long. Her face was heart-shaped and white. Her eyes were dark-lashed and gray.

And those dark-lashed gray eyes were fixed, with a wide look of terror, on Max.

Max was glaring, equally intensely, at her.

She took a cautious half step forward. Max growled.

She swiftly stepped back. Max barked.

She looked as if she was about to start crying.

Jed muttered, “Damn!” and walked into the foyer.

When she saw him, she almost jumped out of her skin. Good grief, he thought, she’s a bag of nerves. But what the hell was she doing in his house?

“Max, shut up!” He signaled and the dog slunk over. “Kitchen!”

The Lab departed. With obvious reluctance.

Jed turned again to the stranger and felt a jolt of alarm when he saw that her face had gone from deathly white to a sickly green. She was staring at him as if he were a specter. For the first time he noticed the purple shadows smudging the skin under her eyes—eyes that had taken on the glazed expression of somebody in deep shock.

Was she going to pass out? He poised to move and catch her if it became necessary.

She pressed the fingertips of her left hand to her throat. He saw she was wearing a plain gold band on her ring finger.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice came out in a raw whisper. “It’s just that…I thought for a moment…”

He glowered at her. “Thought what?”

“I thought—” she cleared her throat of its huskiness “—I thought…for a second…that you were…Chance.”

Chance? Now Jed was the one who was shocked. Shocked and utterly confused. What did this woman want? And why was she standing, in his house, talking about the one person in the world he hated with an obsession that bordered on insanity?

“Who the hell are you?” He clenched his hands into fists…and saw her flinch.

Drawing in a sharp breath, she stared at him. “I’m Sarah.” Her voice held a tremor. “Sarah Morgan.”

“Morgan?”

“Your…sister-in-law.”

“Sister-in-law?” He was beginning to sound like an imbecilic parrot.

“Yes.” Her voice had steadied somewhat. “I’m Chance’s wife—” she grimaced “—Chance’s widow, I mean. I find it difficult to get used to saying that, after—”

“Chance is dead?”

“He died, in a car accident, seven months ago.”

Sarah had never seen anyone lose color so quickly.

But even as she felt a surge of compassion for him, she struggled to regain her own equilibrium after the shock she had just received. It had never occurred to her that Chance and his brother would be so alike.

The hair was the same: coal-black, rich. The features were the same: lean, rugged. The eyes: green, deep set. The nose: ridged. The figure: tall, rangy…

The only difference she could see was one of attitude. Whereas Chance had had the con man’s built-in charm, his older brother had a dark, brooding aura reminiscent of a character in some Gothic novel.

“You just turn up here, out of the blue, to tell me my brother’s dead?” His tone was harsh with animosity. “Okay, you’ve told me.” His black eyebrows beetled down over his hostile eyes. “So now you can go.”

Good grief, the man was a Heathcliff clone! Sarah speared him with an incredulous glare. “You’d put us out in this storm?”

His lips thinned. “Ah, yes. Us. Two plates, two spoons. So…who did Goldilocks bring with her? A lover perhaps?”

Sarah’s mouth fell open. She’d just told this man her husband was dead and he was accusing her of—oh, unbelievable! Her outrage almost choked her.