Read Online Road to Redemption by Natalie Ann - Free Book Online Page A

it.

Snowing
                 
     
    Jack still couldn’t believe he was in his truck driving on the Northway toward Lucas’s house. He’d had no intention of attending this little get together. But Ryan, always Ryan, had called him and somehow convinced him to go.  He had no excuse this time. He had been on-call for several weeks in a row, and this was his one weekend off. 
    So here he was on a late Saturday afternoon making his way to Saratoga Lake to socialize. The one thing he hated to do. But at least it was better than meeting Ryan at a bar.
    Thankfully it was a small gathering, immediate family and a few friends to celebrate Lucas’s thirty-fifth birthday that had been earlier in the week. And now he guessed to also celebrate the engagement of Lucas and Brooke, which also happened on Lucas’s birthday.
    Pulling into the long driveway, he noticed a scattering of cars, mostly foreign luxury cars. A Mercedes that was Ryan’s, a Lexus SUV, which he suspected was Lucas’s mother’s and a Mini Cooper.  Cori. He wasn’t surprised, was actually expecting it.
    Which was another reason he didn’t want to come tonight.  After yesterday, he realized that he wasn’t working hard enough to avoid her.  Or discourage her.
    It was just too hard to avoid her completely at work.  At least he always had the patients as buffers when he did see her. And he was actually running out of excuses to get away from her when she tried talking to him outside of the exam room.
    Shaking his head, he pulled his extended cab truck next to her Mini Cooper, dwarfing it even more.  Then sat there a minute to get his bearings. 
    He shook his head. This was ridiculous. She was less than half his size. And here he sat, by himself, in his truck, trying to calm his nerves. He was a grown man. He had been with plenty of women in the last few years. Yet this little slip of woman was turning him inside out.
    He shoved the door open with more force than necessary and made his way to the front door determined to take control of the situation.  His way.
    “Jack,” Lucas called out when Jack walked down the hall to the large family room where everyone was seated. “Glad you made it. Everyone’s here now. The weather is keeping several people away tonight.”
    Too late, Jack realized he would’ve had the perfect excuse to stay home tonight. Too bad he hadn’t checked the weather forecast first, he thought with regret.
    He was quickly greeted by Ryan, and then Ryan’s parents Michele and Thomas.  After he pulled back from Michele’s quick hug, he noticed Brooke coming down the stairs followed by Cori. Then felt a shock to his system. He had no idea she would look like that.  He had only ever seen her in brightly colored scrubs and that cursed pink bikini.
    Tonight, though, she looked like nothing he had ever seen before, nor expected to see.
    She was wearing dark washed skinny jeans, a bright red sweater that hugged her tiny waist and flared slightly over her hips, with knee-high black leather boots attached to deadly looking ice pick heels.  The only thing that looked familiar was the red headband in her hair, with a tiny more discreet bow off to the side. 
    Her eyes met his as she descended the stairs.  Stopping right in front of him, she looked up—because even in those heals she was still almost a foot shorter than him—and she smiled.  Her green eyes stood out even more, due to the dark liner and shimmering eye shadow. She literally took his breath away. And standing in front of him smiling like that, she knew it. 
    All thoughts of taking control flew right out of his brain. He was in trouble.
    But he still tried. Except his best wasn’t good enough. She was just too tempting.  Everywhere he turned, there she was.  Just like at the hospital. If he didn’t know better, some days he would swear she was following him. Yet whenever he saw her she never seemed to be aware of him. 
    It was as if she magically appeared