The Reaper’s Gambit by Janet Oppedisano EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author:Janet Oppedisano
- Language: English
- Genre: Fantasy & Futuristic Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Danielle
An unnaturally frigid breeze swirled around me, far colder than normal for
Central Park in mid-June. I pulled my thin cardigan tighter and focused on
my book. Weeks ago, the pergola above me was covered in brilliant purple
wisteria blossoms, but the flowers had died. As everything did. Now all the
vine-laden structure did was shade me from the sun.
“Are you playing or just borrowing the table?” The man’s voice was
deep, soothing, tugging at something in the back of my brain. But its owner
had ignored my book—my obvious message to the outside world saying,
Leave me alone. Find an empty seat.
Keeping my eyes on the text, I said, “I’m waiting for my partner.”
“Mind if I sit until they arrive?”
I tucked a finger in the book and closed it, looking up with a practiced
glare. Late twenties or early thirties, like me, but with dark eyes more suited
to one of the older men who frequented the Chess House. As though he’d
already faced a lifetime of love and loss. He leaned on the park bench
opposite me and smiled, radiating a kindness that pulled at my heart even
more than his voice had.
Danielle
His faded jeans were slim, showing off muscular legs, and his light-gray
T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. Dark ivy league-cut hair, artfully
messed, paired with an immaculate five o’clock shadow.
No way he was here for chess.
I’d set up my board the same way I did every Saturday—three and a half
turns into the last game Dad and I had played, right down to the way he’d
left his c6-knight facing b6. The stranger stretched for the board, his
graceful fingers barely touching the black knight, swiveling it to face white.
“Stop!” My hand shot out, sending the book tumbling to the ground.
His brow creased, and he returned the piece to its original orientation, his
hand retreating faster than I’d reacted. “You’re very particular about your
board.”
I slumped against the wooden slats of the bench, breath rough, stroking
the scar on the inside of my right palm. That was my father’s knight. Take it
easy, Dani. No need to freak out. But the intruder said nothing more about
my ridiculous outburst. Instead, he knelt and picked up my book.
“The Count of Monte Cristo?” He smiled, and my lungs calmed, as
though he fed serenity directly into them. Thumbing through the book, he
stopped two-thirds through and read. “‘There are two ways of seeing: with
the body and with the soul. The body’s sight can sometimes forget, but the
soul remembers forever.’ That’s one of my favorite lines.”
He placed the book on the side of the table, his long fingers lingering on
it. I stared at his elegant hands—odd on such an athletic body—as my
breathing slowed. If only the soul could forget. If only the soul could let go
of the moment two years ago that the body couldn’t remember. The moment
that lived only in my nightmares.
“I set the pieces up…” I tore my
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