Read Online You're Still the One by Annabel Jacobs - Free Book Online Page A

cleaned his hands as best he could.
                  "What do we do now?"
                  "Leave the device on your car. You won't be using it."
                  "What about the one on yours?" In the fading sunlight, she looked wan and worried.
                  He grinned. "We'll dump it somewhere."
                  She nodded, her blue-gray eyes searching his.
                  "It'll be all right," he said, compelled to reassure her.
                  "I hope Grace is, too."
                  Rick had no answer for that so he started the engine and backed the 'Vette out of Katie's drive. He turned north on May Avenue and headed toward his house in Quail Creek. Amazing how close they lived to each other. Amazing they'd steered clear of each other until now.
                  She sat on her side of the car, arms crossed tightly. He figured she was probably still mad about his comments concerning Grace. That was for the best. The more distance between them, the better.
                  Still, as he slid a look at her pale golden skin, the finely sculpted profile, his whole body tightened. In all fairness, their breakup hadn't been entirely her fault. He'd blamed her all these years for not speaking up, but back then he had been too controlling, too insistent on his own way.
                  Even when he'd proposed, he hadn't asked her to marry him; he'd simply told her she would and how they would live. The realization jolted him, and he jerked his gaze to the road. That had been a valid reason to turn him down. Besides her keen sense of family responsibility, had his control played a part in why she couldn't commit to him? The only excuse he had for his domineering behavior was that he'd been young and stupid.
                  As she looked out the window at passing scenery, holding herself away from him, he realized it didn't matter now. They'd gone their separate ways.
                  Spying a police cruiser up ahead, he changed lanes and pulled into the small parking lot of an all-night doughnut shop. She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, slid out of the car and moved around to remove the tracking device from the belly of the 'Vette.
                  He walked to the black and white, slapped it on the underside of the bumper and got back in his car.
                  Katie laughed. "That was good."
                  "It'll keep them busy for a while."
                  "Until we get to your house?"
                  "Yeah."
                  Her smile faded, and he recognized the shadows in her eyes as memories from the past. Memories she was fighting as much as he was. The silence stretched between them, stilted and unfinished. Regret pricked at him. He was swept with a sudden urge to touch her, reassure her, but about what? The past was past. Best to leave it alone.
                  He put the car in gear, reversed and pulled onto May Avenue. They drove in silence to his house. His life was markedly different from what he'd planned, even aside from Katie. She, on the other hand, still appeared to be her sister's self-appointed rescuer.
                  Despite the years that had passed, Rick wasn't willing to play second fiddle to Grace. Yes, the more distance the better. And that meant keeping his hands to himself. After that kiss, which even now rattled him, he knew she could still affect him like a neutron bomb. He couldn't allow himself to get close to her again, not physically, not emotionally.
                  He'd have to protect her, find her sister without letting it become personal. They were over. They couldn't go back; he wouldn't go back.
                  For the fourth time in the last half hour, Katie rose from the supple, navy leather sofa in Rick's