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

watch while they celebrated the babies they were having.
    He could imagine her pain; he knew the kind of strength it took to rebuild and keep living when your world had crumbled around your feet. He’d seen what it had done to his mother. His hand stroked her silky hair and he tried to think of the most eloquent thing to say.
    “Alana, I...”
    “I’m sure that’s more than you ever wanted to know about me,” she said ruefully, patting her eyes with the wadded-up tissues. “I just couldn’t stop once I started talking. I never talk about it, you know. It’s too depressing for other people to hear. They start making these pained faces and their eyes dart left and right like they’re looking for an escape hatch. Anything to get away from the poor sad lady.” She laughed mirthlessly.
    “I wallowed in misery for a while and then I just stopped. My mother and my sisters, especially Adrienne, they were there for me and they kept telling me that Sam wouldn’t want me to give up. That he’d want me to keep on living, to pull it together and to be happy again.
    “So I did. I went back to work and I built Custom Classics up into what Sam wanted it to be. I’m sure he’s proud of it; that place meant everything to him. He died trying to protect the deposit and it would’ve been really weak of me not to keep it going. I have a good life. I have a lot to be grateful for; I don’t want you to think that I don’t know that. But it’s not the life I wanted; it’s the life I got.”
    Roland wanted to contradict her; Sam died protecting her, the woman he loved, not the stupid deposit. He wanted to tell her that she was living her late husband’s dreams, not hers. But he didn’t want to come across preachy and paternal because she hadn’t asked for his advice, just his listening ear. He’d asked her to talk to him, to confide in him and that’s what she’d done. What came next had to be up to her.
    “What can I do to help, Alana? I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone anymore,” he said. He tilted her chin up so that their eyes met. “You’ve been handling a whole lot of things by yourself, from what I can tell, and it’s time for that to be over. It’s time for a new life for you.”
    They leaned into each other at the same time and the resulting kiss started out tender and binding, but it soon turned hot and passionate. Her hands slid up his broad shoulders and she locked her arms around his neck, while his went down her body, sliding under the soft sweater until she could feel him against her bare skin. She moved against him urgently, changing positions until she was straddling him and they were beginning to get lost in each other. Alana managed to slow down, gently pulling away from his lips.
    “Stay with me, Roland. Stay with me tonight,” she whispered.

Chapter 6
    T ake one step forward and six steps back. That was exactly how Alana felt ever since the night of the anniversary party. She’d opened her soul to Roland because that’s what he’d said he wanted. He wanted her to talk, and she’d talked. He wanted to get to know her better, to know what made her tick, to let her know she wasn’t alone anymore. But after she’d poured out the things she’d been keeping inside her for so long, he’d bolted.
    She’d asked him to stay the night with her and he’d run like he’d stolen something. Her face still got hot every time she thought about how embarrassing it was to offer herself up to him like that only to get turned down flat.
    And she thought about it fairly often because it was a big thing to her, monumental, as a matter of fact. She spent her days trying to hide her anger and disappointment, and her nights staying awake. Sleep was just out of the question. It might have been her insomnia but she knew it wasn’t; it was because she was afraid of what might come to her in her dreams. The only up side was the fact that she was getting a lot of painting done.
    Every night she’d go