Following Love Read Free Page A

would go down in his mental history. Do you have wedding bells in your pants?
    But he’d done it anyway. He’d married then divorced less than a year later; the first of several romantic mistakes that nearly cost him everything, including his sanity.
    The latest being the constant phone calls from his ex-wife. Although he hadn’t actually hadn’t spoken to her, she made a point of relaying her intentions. Unfortunately her intentions were getting back into his life.
    He gritted his teeth harder. Damn. He just needed to stay as far away from women as possible. Every time he invited a woman into his life, he wound up neck-deep in drama.
    Enter Stephanie Hall, his ex-wife, married just one year before she’d left him as soon as her child’s father came back into the picture. A child he hadn’t even known she’d had until after they’d returned from the honeymoon.
    He’d been furious, then devastated. But since the adoption had not been finalized yet, he’d had no claim on the child he had grown to love. That was the beginning of a trend of disastrous relationships. Slam.
    With both gloved hands securely fastened on the handle, he swung again. The heaviness of the metal head, the long swinging range of motion and the surging anger increased the momentum’s impact. The more he thought about it, the higher the hammer arched, requiring added control on his part.
    Next there was Jessie Bennett, his ex-fiancée of only seven months, whom he hadn’t seen in a year until the day she’d stood before a judge and swore through a stream of crocodile tears that the child she carried in her arms was his. She’d wanted palimony and child support. Thank God for whoever invented the DNA paternity test. Last he heard, three tests later and she was still trying to figure out who the father was. Slam.
    And finally his ex-girlfriend, Kellie Howard. Beautiful, bright and befuddled, she’d carried enough baggage to fill a super oil tanker. Her split and splintered personality issues had him completely confused. On any given day he had no idea who was going to walk through the door: a sweet, adoring woman or a satanic shrew. Either way, enough was enough.
    He needed to listen to his older brother, Darius; he had the right idea. He always said that women were trouble and beautiful women were trouble times two. And beautiful women with children were completely off the radar. All they wanted was a father for another man’s child and one was as good as any other.
    Disciplined and self-controlled, Julian nodded to focus harder. Every muscle in his body screamed but he didn’t care, he’d worry about that later. Right now all he needed to do was to release this pent-up energy. And knowing only two ways to do it, he chose the one least likely to land him before a family court judge. Slam.
    The release of tension and anxiety was working. He stepped back, preparing for another swing just as his phone rang. He knew exactly who it was even without looking. She’d been calling him all morning and all morning he’d been ignoring her. Slam. “What is with these crazy women?”
    With a stretched, swinging arch, he drew the hammer back once more. A split second later he heard a shriek and instantly stopped. The hammer, weighing just over ten pounds, suddenly lurched downward in midair, wrenching and twisting his arm as gravity took over. Plummeting to the ground, it seemed to weigh a ton. The last thing he’d expected was a scream in answer to his rhetorical rant. He turned, looked down. His jaw dropped open at seeing a woman lying at his boots.
    Breathless, Julian dropped the hammer and hurriedly bent down over her. His long legs straddled her body, giving him full view to assess any injuries. “Don’t move,” he ordered, resting his hand on her shoulder as she began struggling to get up. “Are you okay?” he asked with ardent concern, fearful of a mass