Read Online RUNAWAY by Christie Ridgway - Free Book Online Page A

her cheeks, she dashedthem away with the backs of both hands. “Owen, you shouldn’t be doing that on your own.”
    “I’ve been on my own a lot the past couple of days,” he heard himself grumble. Oh, hell. Now he sounded like he was complaining about her lack of attention when he’d been wishing for that very thing since he’d let her back into his life.
    She made a face. “I’m sorry, I know you must be bored. I’ve just felt a little less…talkative than usual.”
    He was such a rat. There she was with tears still drying and she was apologizing to him. “What’s the matter, honey?”
    “Nothing.” She shook her head, and scooted around on her bottom to face him. “Not a thing.”
    He glanced at the book in her lap, then flicked his gaze toward the boxes behind her. “What do you have there?”
    “Oh. Emily brought them over. She’s been storing the boxes for me. One contains some clothes and the other a bunch of books from my childhood.”
    “Yeah? What’s the one you have there?” Curiosity about a book wasn’t curiosity about her, he told himself.
    She held it up. “ Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott. One of my favorite books as a kid, along with the sequel, Rose in Bloom. ”
    He knew Louisa May Alcott, of course, but he had never heard of these two titles. “Does some annoyingly good little girl die?”

    She put a hand on her chest and made a mock gasp. “Are you referring to Beth in Little Women? For shame, to cast aspersions on one of the most beloved fictional characters of all time. I cried for hours when I read that book the first time.”
    “Yeah? Well, boys, when they are forced to read that book or watch that movie, we use our imaginations to invent ways to hurry that dreary thing to her ultimate destination.” But Izzy had mentioned crying, so he figured he could bring it up. “ Eight Cousins must have a storyline like that one if you’re teary-eyed now.”
    An embarrassed flush crawled up her neck, and she made another quick swipe at her cheeks. “No, no. It’s a cheerful story about an orphan girl who is taken in by her large family and becomes a much beloved member—particularly by the seven boy cousins she’s never met before.”
    “So why’d it make you cry?”
    Her gaze slid away from his. “Call me sentimental. I haven’t seen this copy in a long time and it reminded me of how much pleasure I got out of reading it as a child.”
    Remembrance of pleasure would make her sob? It didn’t jive, but hey, he’d promised himself he wouldn’t pry.
    So he lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Something smells really good.” He remembered in Vegas that she mentioned coming from a large Italian family, no surprise given her last name and the Mediterranean warmth of her olive skin and big brown eyes. “Is that something from your childhood, too? A woman named Cavaletti surely learned her talent in the kitchen at a young age.”
    “Both my nonnas and a zia or two could make a grown man weep with what came out of their stock pots.”
    Weep? Hmm, more crying. “Yeah? What about your mom? Or is she a rebel like you and skipped out on the cooking lessons?”
    “She skipped out on a lot of things,” Izzy murmured, but then her gaze narrowed. “Did you just call me a rebel?”
    “Ms. Just-Say-No-to-Dewey? What do you think?”
    “I think you might be right. Though, truly, moving on from Dewey is—” Breaking off, she laughed. “Don’t get me started on the Dewey decimal system. We’ll be here all night and I won’t even notice your eyes glazing over.”
    “So what will we talk about then? I am bored.”
    “I don’t know.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and he found himself fascinated with the tiny gold ring threaded through the rim of her left one.
    Rebel, all right. No run-of-the-mill piercing for Isabella Cavaletti. She had a different kind of adornment, one that made him think of that sweet delicate shell of ear and how if he let himself follow it