Free The Harder They Fall by Jill Shalvis

mouth parted.
    Hunter leaned close, murmuring her name.
    Then her phone rang, and broke the spell.
     

 
    Six
     
    Trisha started, then slowly let out the breath she’d been holding.
    The phone rang again, and with the noise came reality. Sunday. Oh, dear—Uncle Victor with his weekly dose of guilt and shame.
    “Aren’t you going to answer it?” Hunter asked, his voice husky.
    It did give her some comfort to know he’d been as affected as she. “No.”
    When the phone rang a fourth time, her palms started to sweat. Dammit, not now, not when she felt so open, so incredibly vulnerable. She wouldn’t be able to stand it.
    But Uncle Victor missed Aunt Hilda, and didn’t just the fact that he called her tell her how much he cared, somewhere deep inside?
    Oh, fine. She yanked the receiver off the wall. “Hello?”
    “Well, girl, it’s about time,” Uncle Victor said in the cantankerous, demanding tone he always used with her. “I’ve been trying to get you for two weeks now.”
    “Hello, Uncle Victor.” Her stomach already hurt.
    “In the name of God, Trisha,” he griped. “Turn that blasted noise down.”
    “I like the music,” she pointed out automatically, her every muscle tightening with stress. He couldn’t be nice or kind. Never. Not even when he was calling to say he missed his wife, he missed his niece, that he was lonely. “How are you?”
    “What?” he bellowed.
    “I asked how you were,” she repeated dutifully, slightly louder, in deference to the hearing loss that he wouldn’t admit to save his life.
    “Tough as nails, as always. What the hell have you been doing?”
    “I, uh...” She glanced at Hunter, who had squatted on the floor and was inspecting their work. He’d obviously forgotten about her. Relieved, she turned her concentration back to the telephone. “Just the usual, Uncle Victor.”
    “You mean you’re still selling that nasty crap to people who have nothing better to do with their time?”
    Like the man didn’t have a stack of adult magazines dating back twenty years in the woodshed behind the garage. “Selling nasty crap. That about sums it up,” she said cheerfully while her stomach clenched. She shot another surreptitious glance over her shoulder.
    Hunter didn’t even glance up, which relaxed her somewhat. She didn’t want him to be an audience to what she knew was coming.
    “Good God, girl, your aunt Hilda’s probably rolling in her grave,” Uncle Victor said roughly, his voice heavy with disapproval. “I’m not sure where we went wrong that you feel you have to do this.”
    “You didn’t go wrong. And it pays the bills.” Sometimes .
    “What’s the point, if you can’t be proud of what you do?”
    “Who said I wasn’t proud of what I do?” Dammit, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t let him bait her, and here she was, hooked again. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Hunter’s stance had stiffened. With all her might, Trisha wished she’d answered the phone in the other room, away from his curious ears.
    “Well, you might as well be standing on the street corner, flaunting your wares.” Uncle Victor berated her so loudly that Trisha had to pull the phone away from her ear.
    Hunter went unnaturally still.
    “Standing on the street corner would constitute a different occupation entirely,” Trisha observed lightly as the last of her nerves frayed. Hunter shifted suddenly, drawing her attention to his concentrated frown, and she closed her eyes in embarrassment. Oh, well, it wasn’t as if she were trying to make a good impression. It was far too late for that.
    Besides, she didn’t care what he thought of her.
    Yeah, and pigs could fly.
    “Sassing me!” her uncle said with disgust. “You would never have dared when—”
    “Aunt Hilda was alive.” She quietly completed Uncle Victor’s oft-spoken line.
    “I’m just trying to make sure I do what’s right by you.” Uncle Victor spoke louder than before, a sure sign his