Free The Hero’s Sin by Darlene Gardner Page A

to a stop. Sara had been fishing for answers since he’d met her, and it was time he provided some of them.
    “I moved in with her after my mother died. I was sixteen but I’d only met her once, when she came to visit us in Florida. It was pretty obvious from the start that my being here was making trouble for her.”
    “Trouble? How?”
    “Aunt Felicia’s husband didn’t want me living with them.”
    “You mean your uncle?”
    “I never thought of him as my uncle, and he sure didn’t treat me like a nephew. The day I turned eighteen, he told me to leave.”
    Her mouth dropped open. “Whatever for?”
    “He said he didn’t need a reason.” He recited what he remembered of Murray’s speech without emotion. When it came to Murray, he’d never been emotional.“An eighteen year old was an adult and should be able to fend for himself.”
    “That’s really callous.” Her voice was full of empathy. “What did your aunt say?”
    Ah, his aunt. She was the one who’d mattered. “She said she was sorry.”
    Sara placed a hand on his arm. In the light from the porch he could see her eyes were soft with compassion for the boy he’d been. “Now I understand why you and your aunt are uncomfortable around each other.”
    “So you noticed?” He kept his voice light. Just barely. His aunt never forgot to send cards at Christmas and on his birthday, but that was the extent of her interest in him. “Before last weekend, I hadn’t seen her since I left town.”
    “Is that what you did after Murray kicked you out? Left town?”
    “Not right away,” he said. “The Pollocks took me in. Mr. Pollock even gave me a job. I already knew, though, that I wouldn’t stick around for long.”
    “Where did you go when you left Indigo Springs?”
    Tell her, Michael thought. Tell her you didn’t leave alone.
    But that wasn’t what she had asked.
    “Johnstown. It’s a couple of hundred miles west of here. I went to community college at night and worked construction during the day.”
    Everything he told her was true, but vastly misleading at the same time because he was leaving out so much.
    Chrissy leaving Indigo Springs with him.
    Chrissy growing increasingly unhappy away from everything she’d ever known.
    Chrissy dying.
    It was a miracle somebody in town hadn’t told her about it before now. That left it up to him to tell her.
    Right now.
    Except Sara leaned over and kissed him. Her fingers spiked through his hair, cradling his scalp, holding his head in place so she could fasten her mouth more securely to his.
    He’d been trying not to think about the last time she’d kissed him, but this kiss brought the feelings she’d stirred up bursting to the surface.
    He might have fooled himself into believing he’d stayed in town only because of his aunt, but that wasn’t true.
    The more compelling reason was in his arms.
    She tasted of the strawberries from his aunt’s pie, but he’d sampled her kisses before and knew they’d always be sweet.
    She parted her lips, and he accepted her silent invitation, deepening the kiss with an erotic slide of tongue on tongue. His body hardened, his erection straining against the denim of his jeans.
    A phone rang inside the house, a jarring reminder that they were on a lighted porch where anybody who happened to be passing by could see them, but he couldn’t seem to stop kissing her, as though she were a drug of which he couldn’t get enough.
    “Michael.” His aunt’s voice followed by the creak of the screen door finally gave him the resolve he needed to break the kiss.
    Sara’s eyes were closed, appropriate because she didn’t know exactly who it was she’d been kissing.
    “Oh. Excuse me.” Aunt Felicia took one look at them and backed away. “I didn’t know…I shouldn’t have…”
    “It’s okay, Aunt Felicia.” Michael was pleased with the even tone of his voice, especially since he didn’t feel in control at all. Sara edged away from him, but only slightly.