A Woman Worth Loving Page 14
“Then here goes.”
Seth took a deep breath and clicked Send.
Barely an hour later Seth’s cell phone rang. Seth swore at the interruption.
“Someone has lousy timing,” he groused, ending his exploration of Audra’s slim neck as they lay in a hammock suspended between two trees on the beach they considered theirs.
“Hello.”
“It’s Welling. What in the hell is this?” the other man barked, not bothering with any pleasantries.
Seth grinned anyway. “Hey, Deke. You got my e-mail, I take it.”
“I got an e-mail from someone named Seth Ridley and when I opened the attachment all I found was a single photograph.”
Seth winked at Audra. “Yeah? What did you think of the picture?”
Seth considered it some of his best work. In it, he and Audra were grinning at one another as they stood on the beach with seagulls diving and a couple of sailboats dotting the horizon behind them. He was slipping a ring onto Audra’s finger, the diamond winking in the sun, and they were bathed in the golden light of a brand-new day.
“What do I think?” Welling snarled. “I think I want to see the rest of what you’ve got.”
“Sorry,” Seth replied. “I’m not sending any others.” He smiled at the woman in his arms, the woman he loved without reserve or condition. Audra was smiling right back at him, and he knew she loved him without reserve or condition, too. “That picture says it all.”
“Smithfield! Smithfield!” The other man’s shout came through the receiver.
Audra plucked the phone from Seth’s hand and cradled it to her cheek. “Smithfield?” she said. “Sorry. There’s no Scott Smithfield here.”
After flipping the phone shut, she tossed it into the sand and then reached for Seth.
“Now, where were we?”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6690-5
A WOMAN WORTH LOVING
First North American Publication 2006.
Copyright © 2006 by Jackie Braun Fridline.
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*Contract Brides
**9 to 5
†Heart to Heart