Read Online Barefoot in the Rain by Roxanne St. Claire - Free Book Online

left Mimosa Key; he never knew how she got away. And, shit, he’d been too scared to find out. Scared to lose his scholarship. Scared to lose everything he’d promised his own father. Scared of the recriminations of pursuing a girl he thought he—no, a girl he really
did
love.
    He hadn’t been willing to pay the price, and he’d had to live with that. Had to pay it now, in a different way.
    “Jocelyn.” He took one step closer, slowly taking hishands out of his pockets as if they had a will of their own to reach for her. Instead he cracked his knuckles like he had a million times in the dugout during a tense inning. “I understand your position. Maybe you could…
we
could… find someone to live with him. Or stay with him during the day.”
    “That’s—”
    “Expensive, I know. God, I know exactly what it costs and he doesn’t have that much money left and neither do I, or I’d—”
    She waved him quiet. “I would never expect you to pay for his care. He’s my problem and I’ll have a solution. That’s what I do, really. This is right in my wheelhouse.”
    “In your
wheelhouse
?” He almost choked on a batting term he’d heard a hundred times on the field, the expression wrong right here in so many ways.
    “Yes, this is what I do. I’m a life coach, Will. I put people’s lives back together. I help them find solutions to the everyday problem of life. I organize, structure, prioritize, and master their everyday lives. Usually I teach them how to do that for themselves, but in this case, I’ll just skip that step.”
    She sounded so
clinical
. “Actually,” she continued, slowing down as if a thought had just occurred to her. “If it’s going to make things easier for him to believe that I’m from some TV show, then fine, I can play that game, as long as we can get him away somewhere.”
    “Where?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll find a facility.”
    A facility. “You can’t just lock him up. He’s a person,” he said stiffly.
    “He’s an anim—”
    “Not anymore he’s not!” His exclamation echoed through the garage, making Jocelyn’s eyes pop wide and her cheeks pale. Son of a bitch, that was the wrong thing to do. “The disease has changed him,” he added softly.
    “Alzheimer’s doesn’t affect your soul.” She hissed the last word, then closed her eyes to turn away. “Does the car run?” She gestured toward Guy’s old Toyota.
    He cleared his throat and jammed one more knuckle that refused to crack. “Yeah, I start it up every week or so to make sure the battery doesn’t drain.”
    “Good, then I won’t have to rent one to go to the mainland. You don’t have to worry about him anymore, Will.”
    He put a hand on her shoulder and slowly turned her toward him. “It’s not him I’m worried about.”
    She held his gaze, inches away, the first glimmer of vulnerability in her eyes. Shaking him off, she slipped out of his touch. “I better get to work.”
    “Now?” He practically spit the word. “Today? This minute?”
    “Of course. There’s no reason to wait.” She put her hands on her hips as she looked around the garage and up to the loft, where more boxes were piled. “Are any of those empty cartons? I’ll need them. And these.” She snagged a box of Hefty bags from the worktable, yanking out a sheet of thick black plastic. “I’m sure there’s plenty of trash around here.”
    He just stared at her. Who was this woman? Where was the tender, vulnerable, soft young girl he’d been so madly in love with when he was seventeen?
    She snapped the bag with a satisfying crack. “Don’t you have to go back to work?”
    He took a step backward. “Yeah, I do. I’ll be back here later.”
    “Why?”
    “To make him dinner.”
    She lifted an eyebrow. “I’ll handle it.”
    On a soft exhale, he just nodded like he understood. But, shit, he didn’t really understand anything about her anymore.

Chapter 6

    T he show’s on!” Guy came bounding into the dining room