Man With A Past

Will the truth set him free?

Joe Brody: Out of prison but still serving time---all because no one in his hometown believes he's innocent. He'd leave the place in his dust, but his father---the only family he has left---needs him.

Ashley Cade: Widowed with a toddler to take care of. She's moved here to make a fresh start---but being accepted into the inner circles of a close-knit town isn't easy. Especially after she hires the town pariah as a handyman.

Joe and Ashley. The attraction between them is powerful. But is it enough to overcome the whispers that Ashley has begun to hear?

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Excerpt

On the corner of Main and Elm, he hesitated outside Pat’s Diner. Back in high school it was the popular place to hang out, and pretty much the only place to eat downtown.

Through the glass door he spotted an empty bar stool well away from the patrons who occupied the booths, and he grabbed the handle before he could change his mind. If he kept his head down maybe no one would notice him.

“Good morning, what can I get--” The waitresses’ mouth dropped open. “Oh. My. God.”

So much for no one noticing him. The woman’s cheeks filled with color and her hand moved protectively over her heavily rounded stomach. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t put her face with a name.

“C-c-coffee?”

His neck prickled from the multitude of stares brought on by her behavior, but he ignored them as best he could and nodded. The pot shook wildly as coffee splashed into his cup.

“C-cream?”

She still hadn’t let go of her belly.

“Black’s fine, thank you.”

His thanks seemed to throw her. She bit her lip and then said, “You, um, want something to eat?”

Joe shook his head and stared down into the murky depths of the rich-smelling brew. The pregnant waitress hurriedly waddled away with an audible sigh of relief, meeting up with another waitress at the end of the counter.

Comments came to him then, the whispers getting louder and easier to hear. The words baby killer and murderer at the forefront. Josie’s name. Josie’s killer. His manslaughter charge and how he’d gotten off easy when an eye for an eye would’ve been better.

The diner door opened behind him and Joe immediately shifted his back to the wall on his left. Old habits were hard to break even though he’d been in a workhouse most of the last ten years. Still, once the other inmates had discovered what he’d been convicted of, things had a tendency to happen. So-called accidents. If not for his height and build he probably wouldn’t have lived long, but as it was he’d gotten used to putting his back to the wall for protection.

Head down, Joe took a sip of coffee, but just when he thought his morning couldn’t get any worse, Taylorsville’s police chief took a seat two stools down from his.

“Mary, can I get a cup to go?”

Mary. Mary Bishop. That was her name. She was John Bishop’s little sister, and that explained the familiarity. She looked like John, who’d been one of his buddies in high school, but was a good bit younger. Seven or eight when he’d been convicted, which put her around eighteen now.

Like magic Mary reappeared out of nowhere and handed the lawman a plastic-capped cup as though she’d already had it ready and waiting. Known he was coming as though he’d been called.

“Here ya go, Hal.”

“Thanks, hon, I appreciate it. That baby doin’ okay?”

Joe watched as her gaze darted nervously to him before she placed both hands over her front.

“Fine now. The doc says I’m okay so long as nothing more goes wrong.”

Silence.

It was almost comical how quiet the diner was compared to when he’d walked in. Not even the normal sound of banging and clanging pots and pans could be heard from the kitchen. The proverbial pin could’ve dropped and the most hard-of-hearing would have flinched from the noise.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” the chief stated firmly as he pulled the perforated tab off the top of his coffee, giving the task more care than it needed. Casually, his leather holster creaking as his badge flashed beneath the lights overhead, Hal York turned to face him.

“Isn’t that right, Joe? Nothing’s going to happen because as soon as you drink your coffee, you’re going to leave town.”

Joe didn’t move. “I heard about Melissa,” he murmured softly, acutely aware their audience listened to every word. “I’m sorry--”

“Don’t,” Hal ordered, his voice gruff. “Don’t you even say her name. Maybe one day God’ll forgive you, but I won’t and neither will my daughter.” He leaned toward Joe. “Leave town and don’t ever come back. Do it, or I’ll make you wish you’d stayed in prison.”

Several people in the diner seconded the chief’s sentiment, and Joe tried to ignore the slight tremor in his hand as he lifted the cup and finished off his coffee before reaching behind him. More than one person gasped as the occupants of the diner waited to see what he was reaching for, and bitterness filled him. It took some doing to ignore them all as he pulled a few bills from his wallet and tossed them onto the countertop, leaving Mary a tip he couldn’t afford.

Joe told himself it was to prove a point, but he couldn’t lie to himself. She reminded him too much of Melissa’s overwhelming panic when she’d found out she was pregnant. Pregnant and unwed, and having to face her father the cop.

Without a word to Hal, he grabbed his duffle and left, wincing when the diner erupted into a small roar of voices just before the door swung closed behind him.

Let them talk all they wanted. Threaten. He wasn’t going anywhere except to see his dad at the nursing home and then–

Then he’d have to do what he’d done for the last ten years—keep his head down and figure out how to survive in a place where everyone hated him.

***

"You just going to stand there and watch it gush?"

Ashley turned toward the sound of Wilson's voice. He hovered outside the kitchen doorway, and for the first time since she'd bought the house from him, she was absurdly grateful the floor slanted. At least the living room wouldn't flood.

You hope.

But as she presently stood ankle deep in water in the middle of her antique wood floor, she figured it was only a matter of time.

"Well?"

Ashley swore under her breath and grabbed a wrench from the toolbox she'd left on the table. She fell to her knees and gasped as water hit her in the face and surged up her nose.

"Gonna have to get down there under it."

She ignored Wilson and attempted to maintain her position and turn the wrench at the same time, but no matter what she did, she couldn't get a good enough grip to stop the flow. Mainly because she couldn't see what she was doing.

A frustrated growl escaped her as she flipped over onto her rear, banged her head against the cabinet on the way down and lay in the water collected in the bottom of the sink cabinet.

"I'll go turn the water off at the pump outside."

"I'll get it here! You go down those steps with your walker and you'll need another hip replaced." Ashley let her head fall back to ease the strain in her shoulders, and sucked in a sharp breath as the icy fluid swamped her hair. Tears threatened, but she determinedly held them back even though a part of her mind wondered why the sink should be the only thing leaking.

She shrieked at the sink and did the only thing she felt like doing at the moment--she hit the pipe for all she was worth.

Amazingly, the gush slowed, sputtered, then peetered out with irregular drips. What the--

She was still lying there, staring up into the underbelly of the cabinet at the stupid pipe and the stupid leak now dripping on her chin, when she heard Wilson greeting someone.

Great. Just great. No doubt the mailman delivering yet another bill. She threw her arm over her face, the wrench still in her hand.

The house she'd thought a godsend, the one that had been such an unbelieavably good deal and came complete with a built-in grandfather for Max, could now be described only as a money pit. Pretty to look at, but a disaster where it mattered most. What was she going to do?

A deep murmur reached her ears, low and rich. Strong. Her mind had to be playing tricks on her because if she wasn't mistaken, she recognized that voice even though she didn't know anyone in town.

And whose fault is that?

"She ain't movin'. Think she drowned?" Wilson asked, his tone half serious, half amused.

She frowned at Wilson's comment and shifted onto her side when their visitor spoke again. She couldn't make out his words, but at the moment she honestly didn't care, either. There wasn't a single part of her body that wasn't cold and wet.

Distracted, she banged her head on the cabinet on the way up and gasped out a curse.

"I heard that. Makes two now, don't it?"

Talk about discriminative hearing. Wilson only heard the things he wanted to hear and nothing else.

"Don't forget to pay up. And it's about time for you to make a trip to the store," he added some somewhere on her left. Near the back door.

Ah. So whoever it was, maybe Wilson hadn't let them in to see the damage, not that water running out onto the porch from beneath the screen door wasn't a dead giveaway that she had one heck of a problem on her hands.

She eyed the belly of the cabinet and was tempted to crawl back in and shut the doors. Instead she wiggled the rest of te way out and glared up at Wilson, but someone's jean-clad knees got in the way.

Her gaze traveled up, all the way up, until she had to tilt her head back, since she still sat on the floor. She finally got a look at their visitor.

The man from the hardware store?

Amusement softened his rough features. "Looks like you could use some more help."

ORDER MAN WITH A PAST

From the book Man With A Past by Kay Stockham
Harlequin Superromance ® May 2006, ISBN 0373713479 , ©2006 Dorma Kay Stockham.

Cover Copyright ©2006 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
® and T are trademarks of the publisher.
The excerpt published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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