Free A Scandalous Melody by Linda Conrad Page B

kiss against her child’s forehead. “If I’d had to give up Maddie so soon after losing her daddy… Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to go on. That’s a fact. I owe Kate everything.”
    Chase was speechless. The two stories of Kate didn’t mesh.
    â€œI’m not going to ask Kate again what happened ten years ago,” Shelby declared with a frown. “Eventually the truth will come out. It always does.”
    Chase nodded. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to hear the whole truth himself. Sometimes secrets were best left buried.
    The air in the house turned sticky—too close, stifling warm and still. He needed a fresh breath. Some way to clear his head.
    He thanked Shelby for the welcome tour and stepped out the front door, looking for a little peace.
    Â 
    Kate hopped down off the rickety riding mower and dislodged the weeds that had glued themselves to the blades. She took a moment to put a hand on her lower back and stretch. It was a wicked, hot day for so early in the spring, and she could feel the sweat trickling down between her breasts.
    Wiping a hand across her brow and glancing over to the house in the distance, Kate’s vision cleared just in time for her to spot a movement on the front veranda. Confused, she looked around a little more and noticed Chase’s car, parked in the shade of the front portico.
    He was already here. Narrowing her eyes, she searched the shadows to find him. It was a little early yet, but it would be nice to get things settled between them.
    She found him there all right, pacing up and down the long veranda. Tall and still so spectacularly good-looking women must fall madly in love with him at first glance, the sight of Chase this morning made her weak in the knees.
    Looking cool and casual, he walked up and down past the double-wide front doors. He was wearing tight jeans and a chambray work shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
    The image dragged out a ten-year-old memory that Kate had tried to lock away. It was of another too-hot spring day when the two of them had nothing in the world to worry about except where to find enough shade to have their picnic lunch.
    She’d been sweaty on that day, too. But most of the heat in those days had come from their close, hard young bodies, holding on to each other as they frantically looked for a place to be together and to be alone with their desperate need.
    Under a favorite willow, they had found shade and privacy. She remembered his touch…the way he tasted as his mouth crushed down on hers.
    The faded memories by themselves were enough to perk up her breasts and send fire skittering down her spine. Kate blinked and tried to fight it, but a long-ago picture came to mind of Chase sitting beside her and watching her undress. He had imprisoned her and made her squirm by simply watching—and wanting—with those sinfully darkened eyes and fierce gaze.
    The startling memory of him watching her undress opened her own eyes. No wonder last night’s striptease had caused such erotic sensations in her body.
    His heat had already scorched her as a girl. Blazed a sensual path down her body and tattooed her soul forever with his marker.
    Back then, even as an inexperienced girl, Kate had climaxed just by staring into those dangerous steel-gray eyes. And she had fallen completely under the spell he had woven around them with soft words and tender touches.
    As the sweat from the current steamy day rolled down her temples and blurred her vision, Kate swallowed past her dry throat and took a deep breath. She also remembered much too clearly the shy, coward of a girl she had been all those years ago. Too timid to seek out what she really wanted. Too eager to let the threat of scandal rule her desires and her life.
    And much too afraid of her father’s influence to go for her dreams.
    But no more. Her father was dead. Everything she loved was on the verge of being lost forever. She could no longer