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

the darkness, Sarah felt the erratic rhythm of her heartbeat. She could hear Asa’s breathing as his chest expanded and compressed. He wasn’t any more controlled than she.
    A long moment passed before he spoke. “Are you sure you want to take a chance on getting involved with a man like me?”
    Sarah closed her eyes for a moment and tried to think logically about her reply. But she couldn’t. She kept remembering her father’s belief that a person had only one shot at the brass ring and he had to go for it, or forever regret the loss. Her father never considered not playing ball, even though his playing hastened his death. The only thing he ever talked about was the great joy his life had brought to him.
    There was no logic to her feelings for Asa Canyon, or to her actions. All she was certain of was that Asa refused to let himself hold her when his need to do so was as great as hers.
    “Do I want to get involved with you? I already am,” she said, and was rewarded with a groan of desperation as his arms locked around her. Their lips met and fused. His kiss was wild and hard as he nibbled his way across her face, pulling on her lips, hercheeks, her ears, as if she were an oasis offering water to a man dying of thirst. There was nothing gentle about him, or about his touch.
    There was nothing tentative about her offering herself to him. She tilted her head to reach his mouth and curved her body to give him the freedom to reach her.
    The night went quiet. Even the frog across the lake had fallen silent—until a response came from another web-footed creature. Their baroque mating call startled Asa, drawing him back to the present. He slowly brought his kisses to a stop.
    Dazed, Sarah pulled back and stared at Asa.
    “My, my,” she whispered. “When you do something, you go all out, don’t you?”
    “I tried to tell you, Sarah. In another minute I’d have had you on the ground and you know what I would have wanted.”
    “I think I do,” she said softly. “But I’m not sure that I’m ready for that—not yet.”
    “I’m damn sure you’re not,” he said, his voice sharp with barely controlled fury. “That’s why you’re going to get into Henry and go home now!”
    “All right, if that’s what you want.”
    “You know damn well that’s not what I want. But what I’ve already taken is all I’m going to get.”
    Asa put his hand on her shoulder and directed her back toward the cabin. He put Sarah in the van and slammed the door.
    “Go home, Sarah. Call me when you get there.”
    “I don’t have your number,” she managed to say, forcing the words past the lump that had almost closed off her throat.
    “I’ll get it.”
    From the wallet he found under the seat in his truck, he extracted a business card, and with a pen, jotted his private number on the back. When he handed it to Sarah he made certain that their hands didn’t touch.
    “Call me,” he directed, “as soon as you get there, so I won’t worry.”
    “Thank you, Asa. I like thinking that you would worry about me.”
    She called twenty minutes later. When he heard her voice he didn’t trust himself to say more than “Fine.”
    Sarah didn’t try to force the conversation. For now, that was enough.
    Asa Canyon raised his arm, took aim, and pulled the trigger four times. The result was one shot in the heart of the cardboard bank robber, two in his arm, and one—who knew where. He’d been firing his gun for the better part of an hour, a task that he normally found soothing. The weapons range usually put things in proper perspective for him. Today he found his mind wandering. Today he was drawing a crowd of onlookers, not from his sharpshooting, but from his misses.
    With a groan he tore the goggles and earprotectors from his face and left the sound-proof room. He might as well quit. He was only wasting bullets.
    He’d spent Sunday morning running around the lake and reading the newspaper, and the afternoon catching up on his