Read Online Let Me Hold You by Melanie Schuster - Free Book Online Page A

bad to me; just let me give you one little kiss.”
    While he was pleading his case Alana wriggled away from him and ran to the bathroom. She was back in minutes with a squeaky-clean face and a box of tissues. She returned to her place in his lap armed with a handful of tissues and a small sigh.
    “I’m sorry about that. I never, ever do that,” she confessed.
    “You don’t have to apologize to me for anything,” Roland said firmly. His long fingers stroked the side of her face as he reassured her. “I know something affected you deeply tonight and I want to make you feel better. I don’t know you well enough to try to guess, but I want to. I want to know you so well that you feel like you can tell me anything, anytime, anywhere. I want you to realize that I’m always going to be here for you, always.”
    Alana didn’t say anything for a moment. She was looking into his eyes, staring so intensely that he was sure that she could see his soul looking back at her. When she started to speak, it was in a slow, measured voice as though she wanted to make sure that he comprehended every word. Her hand rested on his chest, smoothing the fine purple merino knit over and over.
    “This life, the one I have now, isn’t the one I planned on,” she began. “I met Samson Dumond my junior year of college and he was it for me. We came together like magnets and we just never let go. We completed each other, we made each other whole or whatever they say in romance novels.
    “From the very beginning we knew we’d be together forever and our future was all planned,” she said, her eyes misting over with the memories. “Our parents weren’t happy that we eloped, especially my mother. She flipped out when we came back here married, but she got over it. Eventually,” she added with a wry smile.
    “He’d majored in automotive engineering, but the market was so bad when he graduated that he came up with the idea for Custom Classics. I was working with him until the business got on its feet, and then I was going to grad school so that I could teach art while I built up my sales and my client base as a portrait artist. We had it all planned and it was working, too. Custom Classics caught on like wildfire and things were going just the way we wanted.” She stopped to blot her eyes and swallowed hard before continuing.
    “Right before Christmas, we decided to get a big live tree. We’d closed up the shop and went to the bank to make a deposit. We always deposited the bags at night so there wouldn’t be any money in the store overnight. We were both driving that day because I’d had a doctor’s appointment, so Sam followed me to the bank when I made the drop. He was watching my back, like he always did. He was behind me, but a car got between us, because I didn’t see him when I got there. I was about to get out of the car when a man grabbed my arm and jerked me out of the driver’s seat.
    “I can’t say for sure what happened next. Everything went so fast. All I know for sure is that Sam came up out of nowhere and went for the man, who had a gun. And the gun went off and Sam was shot. I must have jumped in at some point because I got shot, too.
    “When I came to I was in the hospital. My husband was gone and so was our baby. And that was the end of my life. You can plan for everything, for a marriage, a career, a house, children, you can plan it all out, but one random meth-head can destroy everything just like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Just like that.”
    Roland was stunned and humbled by what he was hearing. Now he knew why Alana was so elusive, why she ran hot and cold with no warning. She hadn’t gotten over the pain and the anguish she’d suffered from losing her husband and their baby. And that was why she reacted the way she had at the party. It must be killing her to see her sisters and her friends living the life she should have had with her first love. And to have to stand on the sidelines and