Read Online His Forbidden Bride: 50 Loving States, West Virginia by Theodora Taylor - Free Book Online

bring a John Doe patient home? And then almost immediately spread my legs for him?
    I think about hiding in my bedroom for longer than I want to admit, but eventually I make myself return to the main room. There I find him with his clothes back on, bent over my empty fridge.
    “Sorry about the no-food situation. I get a regular delivery from the grocery store on Sundays and Wednesdays,” I explain to him. “That way, the ingredients are always fresh, and I have to cook or risk them going bad. It’s my way of trying to stay healthy. Plus a lot of the stuff I need to cook is special order, so that gives the grocery store time to get it in…”
    I trail off. I’m babbling again. And I once more think about how cool and confident I used to be before I burned my old life to the ground in order to move out here without my parents’ support or approval.
    “What do you do on Saturdays, then, Doc?” he asks, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
    “Well, I tell myself I’ll go out to eat. Like drive into Pittsburgh where they have vegan restaurants. But usually I just end up ordering enough Chinese food to get me through the weekend.”
    “All right. I guess I’m about to find out if Chinese food is old or new.”
    So we eat Chinese food—it’s new, but John likes it. And then we end up back in the living room, most of the day suddenly gone.
    He doesn’t even blink when I explain I don’t have so much as an antenna on the early aughts-era TV in my living room, just a huge collection of DVDs that I feed into its built-in disc drive. Old musicals I’d been watching over and over again as opposed to the current fare of reality shows and nighttime dramas.
    “Though I am planning to finally give Grey’s Anatomy another go when I move to Seattle,” I tell him as I push the DVD into the TV’s disc drive. “It’s so unrealistic, but you know, when in Rome…”
    He responds with a quizzical look.
    “ Grey’s Anatomy or Seattle or Rome?” I ask, feeling like I already know that look all too well.
    “Seattle,” he answers. “When?”
    I clamp my lips not wanting to divulge more about that part of my life than I need to. But in the end, I tell him the truth.
    “In about five weeks I’ll be leaving for a visit to California, you know long enough to get my car shipped out. Then I’ll be driving to Seattle to start my fellowship. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’m paid through the summer on this apartment; it’s a year-to-year lease. You can stay here until August, even after I’ve moved out.”
    But he continues to frown at me from his position on the couch. “That ain’t what I’m worried about, Doc.”
    A chill goes down my back, because even though we’ve done something intimate, what we’ve done was also very, very stupid. As are the feelings rolling around in my chest right now. Feelings that weren’t there before. Like regrets about leaving West Virginia. And sorrow about not having met him sooner.
    “Anyway,” I say, changing the subject with no grace whatsoever. “I think you’re going to like this film, Tommy . Lots of seventies rock. Plus Tina Turner and the Who, back before they were co-opted by every single show and thing.”
    Also, it’s a total sexual tension killer, I add to myself silently as I place myself as far from him as possible on the couch.
    I’m right about him liking the movie, and wrong about it killing the sexual tension. The credits roll and by the time I’ve turned off the TV, he’s standing above me. Cane in one hand, the other held out to me.
    No discussion. He leads me to the bedroom with his hand clasped firmly around mine.
    “I’m going to take a shower,” he says when we get to my bedroom.
    “Hold on…”
    I go to the kitchen and come back with a plastic bag from last week’s delivery. He watches me tie it over his cast, his blues eyes twinkling with lazy amusement.
    But I pretend not to notice as I secure the knot and say, “There’s a little