Never Say Never, Part One (Second Chance Romance, Book 1) Read Free Page A

another step towards them.  
    “Stop right there,” she commanded, fumbling in her bag for her deodorant can, “I’ve got pepper spray in here and I’m not afraid to use it.”  
    Grunting laughter travelled through the air, the figure’s shoulders shook from mirth. He didn’t buy it, apparently.  
    “I’m warning you.” Emily’s voice cracked slightly. She drew out the cylinder of deodorant - hopefully he couldn’t see the label from far – and aimed it in his direction.  
    But it didn’t deter him. His footfalls were heavy on the sidewalk. This was it.  
    The whoop of a siren broke the tension and a police car swung into the street up ahead, closely followed by an ambulance with its red lights flashing. Emily waved frantically and hopped to her feet and the cop car pulled up beside her.  
    “Are you all right, ma’am?” asked the black police officer, leaning out of the car’s window and studying the scene.  
    “I think so,” she said and glanced back, but the mystery attacker had disappeared. She hadn’t seen which direction he’d gone in.  
    Three paramedics poured out of the back of the ambulance, carrying a stretcher with grim expressions.  
    The officer slammed the car door behind him and strolled over. “Can you tell me what happened here?”  
    “Not really.” It was kind of the truth. It might not have been Big Nick who did it.  
    The officer took out a notepad and pen, and Emily shifted her attention to the jerk on the ground. They’d braced his neck and placed him on the stretcher. It was probably the last time she’d see him, and remorse tickled the back of her mind. What was that about?  
    “How did you come across the victim?”  
    “I fell over him.”  
    “Sorry?” The officer shot her a quizzical look over the end of his pen.  
    “I tripped over him.” She lifted her palms for the first time since the fall and winced at the grazes on them.  
    “I see. And you didn’t catch a glimpse of who might have done this?”  
    “No.” Also the truth, but it made her skin crawl saying it.  
    The police officer snapped the notepad closed and stashed it back in his top pocket of his shirt. “Are you all right?” He softened his tone and the trauma of finding a half-dead man and being stalked by a psychopath hit home.  
    She let out a long low sigh and shouldered her bag. “Been better. Mind giving me a lift home?” Emily hated handouts, but she’d had enough trouble for tonight.  
    “No problem, ma’am. Hop in the back.”  
    She followed his lead, and squidged herself onto the back seat. Anxiety rose from the smell of the seats, the imaginary bite of cuffs on her wrists. She grasped a distraction, turning to stare at the ambulance behind them. It followed them from the dark street to the main road, before turning and speeding off in the distance.  
    Emily’s heart was a lead weight in her chest.  

    All she wanted was supper and maybe a peek at Netflix before bed, but the cupboards were almost bare and her TV was broken.  
    Emily settled for microwave ramen and sat down at the table. She had to come up with a plan for getting Nick the money. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he’d exact what he thought she owed him in other ways.  
    She blew on a forkful of steaming hot noodles and deposited them in her mouth. They were too chewy, but she slurped them up. The lamp over her kitchen table swung gently in the breeze from the open window.  
    The drugs had been her escape, but they’d granted her a prison instead and it’d been worse than any in her past life. Before it happened. Now, it was pay up or become a literal hooker for a bald man with a probable bondage fetish.  
    Shit, he scared her senseless. Big Nick was her anti-sex, with his sweaty pits and dirt-stained stove pipe jeans.  
    “Yeugh,” she mumbled and pushed the cup of noodles aside.  
    How much money had she made?  
    Emily brought out the wad of bills from her jeans and