Read Online Remembering You: Pushing the Boundaries, Prequel by Audra North - Free Book Online Page A

pushing herself out of bed and looking around wildly for her clothes. She located her panties and leggings, but had to fish around in the sheets for her socks.
    He watched her, brow furrowed, as she dressed hastily.
    “I take it this isn’t as exciting for you as it is for me,” he said with a wry smile.
    It is exciting. Too exciting. You’re all wrong for me. Even though I don’t want you to be. You get shot at for a living, for chrissakes!
    Nina shook her head and crossed her arms over her bare breasts. Her shirt and bra were in the other room. She wanted to flee, to run away from this guy whom she barely knew, but at the same time…she’d missed having him in her life.
    No. No, that’s stupid. Your job doesn’t allow you to have relationships like these.
    Especially not with a man whose job would put her through the same, constant pain her dad had inflicted.
    She owed him some kind of explanation, though. She sighed. “No. It’s—I mean, yeah, it’s freaky and I wasn’t exactly prepared for this little revelation. But it doesn’t—it can’t change anything. This…” she wiggled her fingers toward the bed, “…was one night. You’re making it sound like the start of something serious.”
    He rubbed his face with his hands and looked up at her. “I don’t exactly make a habit of one-night stands, Nina. In fact, you’re the only one.”
    She took a step back. “I told myself you were too good to be true,” she whispered. God, no, that didn’t sound right. Even though it felt right.
    But she couldn’t do anything about it. Once Dad got better, she was leaving. What if she agreed to keep seeing Ben and then he tried to make her stay when it was time for her to head out of Greenbriar again?
    “You’re a police officer,” she told him, as though stating the obvious would make any kind of sense to him. “SWAT, no less.”
    “That’s not the first time you’ve been less than pleased by my choice of profession. I got the feeling you didn’t really want to talk about it back at the bar, but it seems kind of hypocritical that you have a blanket dislike for anyone in the force when your dad was an MP.”
    He wasn’t excited anymore. Instead, he was frowning, still sitting motionless on the bed and staring at her with a look of perplexed pity while she cowered like a scared rabbit.
    Her heart leapt into her throat. How could this be happening? She’d been back in town for only a couple of weeks, long enough to find care for her dad, land a job, get a car…everything had happened so fast. The Army officer on the phone, telling her about her father’s accident and early retirement…the long flight home from South America, where she’d been…the shock of seeing her dad’s face completely blank when she arrived home…
    How could she explain it to him? She wasn’t ready to talk about it.
    She didn’t think she’d ever be ready.
    This night hadn’t turned out how she’d thought it would. At least she’d made arrangements for a helper to stay with Dad tonight, since she had thought her first day at a new job would be long and draining, and it wasn’t as though Dad would miss her, anyway. He didn’t even know where he was, much less care about the whereabouts of his daughter.
    But she forced herself to focus on Ben. He looked confused, angry and—she didn’t think she was imagining it—sad.
    He’d said, back in the time at the hospital, that he was good at being alone. The idea of him by himself made her feel sad too.
    She took a deep breath, trying to find the words to explain. “It’s not dislike. Not quite. It’s not—I really appreciate the police, actually. I respect them. Just not when they’re in my personal life. I mean, I don’t have a lot of police in my personal life, anyway. Just—”
    She was rambling. She never rambled. She stopped herself, trying to regain a little equilibrium. “I’m sorry. It’s complicated. But it’s not dislike, and it’s not