A Summer to Remember Read Free Page A

protect and keep her safe. She knew what it was like to be fierce and independent. Sometimes, just for a change, she wanted to be pampered and coddled.
    Elliot’s gaze fixed on her, searching, before he asked, “You find what you needed here?”
    There was such intensity in his eyes that it seemed almost physical, warming her face, sliding along her skin, tying a knot in her gut. She had to shrug out of the slicker to slow the heat burning through her, had to clear her throat before she could answer, and when she did, the words came out husky. “Yeah. I did.” What she needed, what she wanted, and the hope for maybe, someday, what she only dreamed about.
    Movement blurred on the sidewalk, a carhop on skates rolling their way. Elliot’s gaze didn’t waver, though, not until it softened, not until he quietly, with some satisfaction, said, “Good. That’s good.”
    *  *  *
    Elliot liked women. All women. He didn’t have a type, no preference in hair color, physical characteristics, sometimes not even personality: He had great memories of a few women who would have driven him crazy if they’d stayed together one minute longer. Women were the best idea God had ever had, soft and funny and smart and difficult and beautiful and sexy and aggravating and intriguing and frustrating and so incredibly sweet.
    Fia Thomas—he wondered if that was short for Sofia—was making a great start on being all those things. He wouldn’t be surprised if he drove away from her tonight with one of what Emily called his serious casual crushes. He always fell a little bit in love with the women he dated. It never lasted long, and he was okay with that, since he wasn’t eager to get his heart broken. He’d volunteered for a lot of dangerous things in his life, but heartache wasn’t one of them.
    He paid for their dinner, brushing away the five bucks Fia produced from one of her slicker pockets. Handing her a paper bag and a drink, he grinned. “You can buy next time.” Since he would be in Tallgrass awhile, might as well make sure she had a reason to see him again.
    “That sounds fair.” She unpacked her bag: fries on the dash, hamburger staying warm in foil, ketchup squirted from plastic packets onto an edge of French fry packaging. “It can even be home-cooked as long as it doesn’t have to be my cooking.”
    “Hey, you provide the kitchen, I can do the cooking. I like to cook.”
    She studied him a moment before licking a dab of ketchup from her fingertip. “I like a man who knows his way around a kitchen,” she said at last.
    If she would lick her finger like that again, all innocent and tempting and unself-conscious, he’d gladly do the shopping, the prep, the cooking, the serving, and the cleanup for the best meal she’d ever had—and breakfast to follow.
    Mouse climbed into Elliot’s seat as he unwrapped his burger, breaking the tension that surrounded him, making it easier for him to draw a breath. When he tore off a bite, she took it delicately from his fingers, chewed it carefully, then set her butt on the console, and waited, quivering, for the next.
    “How long have you had her?” Fia asked around a mouthful of her own burger.
    He gave the dog an affectionate nudge with his elbow. “Two days.”
    “Is she a rescue?”
    He didn’t need to study Mouse to see what Fia saw: scrawny body, ribs showing through her skin, old injuries to her legs and torso. “Yeah. Some kids were playing soccer with her. She was the ball.” He flexed his hand again, taking satisfaction in the aches there—and greater satisfaction that the teenagers were in a lot more pain than either him or Mouse.
    “Poor baby. Lucky you and your trusty steed rode to her rescue. I hope you gave them something to remember you by.” She smiled, softening the lines and the thinness of her face. Mouse wasn’t the only one who needed a few pounds to fill her out. In her loose-fitting T-shirt and shorts, Fia looked as if she hadn’t found much