Free Silver Bracelets: A Loveswept Contemporary Classic Romance by Sandra Chastain

blessings.”
    “I’m glad.”
    Asa stopped and turned to study Sarah in the moonlight.
    “Why did you really come here tonight?” he asked.
    “Because I didn’t want you to be alone.”
    He gave a dry laugh. “You didn’t have to bother. I’m an expert at being alone. I ought to be, I’ve had a lot of experience with it.”
    “I don’t understand, Asa.” She caught his arm. “Tell me why you’re alone.”
    “All right,” he finally said. “I was brought up in an orphanage, a real orphanage, Sarah. I don’t even know who my parents were. I was the kid everybody took home and returned. As soon as I graduated from high school I joined the Marines. From then on, it was me who was leaving.”
    “You’ve never had anybody?”
    “I guess Jeanie is the only family I’ve ever had.”
    “Oh, Asa, I’m so sorry they didn’t love you. You must have been very strong to survive.”
    “Don’t feel sorry for me. I wasn’t a nice child. But one thing I finally learned is that a man is responsible for making himself happy. Hecan’t depend on anyone else. People are temporary. They can be replaced.”
    Asa was talking to Sarah, but he was also talking to himself, working through the problem, just as he always did until he had an answer that he could deal with.
    People are temporary? Sarah couldn’t even begin to argue with his calm acceptance of loss.
    “Believe me, Sarah, for a time, Jeanie thought that she wanted the security I offered. She needed to feel wanted, to have someone care about her. Now, she has Mike. And that’s good.”
    “You truly aren’t grieving?”
    “I’m not grieving.”
    With her free hand Sarah reached up and touched Asa’s face. “If you don’t want me here, I’d better go. I don’t know how to be temporary.”
    Asa looked down at her stricken expression. He was rejecting what she was offering, and she didn’t know how to deal with it.
    “Yes, you’d better, Sarah. For if you stay I’ll only mess up your life.”
    “I don’t believe that.”
    “You should. I’m not kind and giving. And I don’t know how to accept your compassion.”
    “That’s not true, Asa. You care about people. That makes you special in my book.”
    “Not people. Just Jeanie and she was a responsibility, like my job. Being with you isn’t the same.”
    “It isn’t? I’m glad.”
    He drew Sarah’s hand to his mouth, where he planted a quick kiss on her palm, then let go.
    “Ah hell, Sarah, go home while I can still let you go. This can’t work. I’d make you miserable.”
    “Why don’t you let me decide?”
    “I’m compulsively neat,” he went on, as if he was trying to convince himself as well as Sarah. “My bathroom doesn’t have any extra toothbrushes in the cabinet because I don’t like people in my house. My truck sits too high off the ground for a lady to climb in and out of because I don’t welcome a woman’s company. In other words, I’m a man who has a plan for every part of his life, and you’re a lady—”
    “Without one,” she finished. “Maybe you’re right. But I think you may be wrong about what a man has to do to be happy. Maybe there are times when it’s better to forget all your plans and fly blind into the sun.”
    She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes in the darkness. But she could feel the tension in his touch. He should have loosened his grip and stepped back if he wanted her to believe that he was pulling away. But he didn’t. Instead there was an almost imperceptible movement that brought him even closer.
    Sarah’s heart was thudding in her chest. Her knees felt shaky.
    “I’m sorry, Asa. I don’t seem to be very smart about this. I feel wicked for even thinking it. I guess I’m not a truly noble person. I’m noteven being honest about why I’m here. The real reason I came”—her voice dropped into a throaty whisper—“is because I think that I want you .”
    “That’s crazy,” he said.
    “I know, but it’s true.”
    In