"Nora Roberts - [O'hurleys 01] - The Last Honest Woman [TXT]" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberts Nora)

place away from crowds and noise where he could concentrate on writing.
It reminded him of the home he'd had as a child, where security bad gone
hand in hand with hard work.

When his muffler scraped the road again, he was no longer charmed. Dylan
pulled up behind a pickup truck and a compact station wagon and shut off
his engine. Dropping his rag on the floor mat, he rolled up his window
and had started to open the door when a mass of wet fur leaped on it.

The dog was enormous. Maybe it had meant to give a friendly greeting,
but in its current bedraggled state, the animal didn't look too
pleasant. As Dylan gauged its size against that of a small hippo the dog
scraped two muddy paws down his window and barked. "Sigmund!"

Both Dylan and the dog looked toward the house, where a woman stood near
the porch steps. So this was Abigail, he mused. He'd seen enough
pictures of her over the years to recognize her instantly. The
fresh-faced ingenue in the pits at Rockwell's races. The stunning
socialite in London and Chicago. The cool, composed widow by her
husband's grave. Yet she wasn't precisely what he'd expected.

Her hair, a honey blond, fell across her forehead in wispy bangs and
skimmed her shoulders. She looked very slender, and very comfortable in
jeans and boots and a bulky sweater that bagged at her hips. Her face
was pale and delicate through the rain. He couldn't see the color of her
eyes, but he could see her mouth, full and unpainted as she called to
the dog again.

"Sigmund, get down now."

The dog let out a last halfhearted bark and obeyed. Cautious, Dylan
opened the door and stepped out. "Mrs. Rockwell?"

"Yes. Sony about the dog. He doesn't bite. Very often."

"There's good news," Dylan muttered, and popped his trunk.

As he pulled out his bags, Abby stood where she was while her nerves
tightened. He was a stranger, and she was letting him into her home,
into her life. Maybe she should stop it now, right now before he'd taken
another step.

Then he turned, bags in hand, and looked at her. Rain streamed from his
hair. It was dark, darker now wet and plastered around his face. Not a
kind face, she thought immediately as she rubbed her palms on her
thighs. There was too much living in it, too much knowledge, for
kindness. A woman had to be crazy to let a man like that into her life.
Then she saw that his clothes were drenched and his shoes already coated
with mud.