You're Still the One Read Free Page A

heels.”
    “How did she treat people?”
    “Worse than cattle. If she’d had a cattle prod and a red-hot branding iron, she would have used it.”
    He asked more questions. Jace was always curious, always wanted to know more about me, what I thought, my life. Most people don’t. Bare essentials are enough for them.
    “Way to go out in a blaze of glory, Allie.” Those dark eyes said it all. He respected my decision. “Good for you. What do you want to do next?”
    “I don’t know. It hasn’t been that long, but it feels like that person, who I was, is a strange and mysterious creature; and who I’ll be in the future is also a strange and mysterious creature.”
    “Do you want to go back to retail management, back to being a VP?”
    Aha! He knew that about me, too! I felt a bit giddy. “No, I don’t want to.” I thought of my bank account. I could not be poor again—could not. “If I had to go back to being an exec, I would. The thought makes me feel ill. I was not happy.”
    “Why weren’t you happy?”
    “Besides my boss, who arrived on a chariot from hell with a whip, my whole life was marketing and selling clothes. Choosing lines.Working with designers, public relations, managers, traveling. I love clothes, I love style.” At least I used to love style. Wearing the latest fashions and four-inch heels allowed me to hide the “trailer trash” girl my father always told me I was. “Yet there was no substance to my job. There was nothing of value. I figured out how to sell expensive clothes to expensive people. I was exhausted all the time and I didn’t have a life.” I stopped. “Why am I telling you all this?”
    “Because I asked.”
    “I know, but I haven’t seen you in years and here I am, yammering on.”
    “We’ve always yammered on together.” He smiled, and I saw sadness in his eyes, probably the same sadness that lived in my eyes. “If you could do anything, what would you do?”
    “Bake pies. All day. I’d bake pies.” I laughed and pushed a strand of hair back behind my ear. How I wished I’d washed my hair in the last three days, but I hadn’t. Turmoil does that to a woman. “I’ve hardly baked pies at all for years, but I used to love it.”
    “They were delicious.”
    “Thank you.” I blushed again . “My whole life needs a reset. After I was fired and my dad died, I decided to move out to his house in the country. My condo sold really fast. I don’t know how to take care of apple trees and I now have two dogs, Bob and Margaret. Bob thinks squirrels are his sworn enemies and Margaret has to sleep with a stuffed pink bear in her paws or she won’t sleep at all. I was up for thirty minutes the other night looking for that dumb pink bear.”
    We both laughed, and as we talked I continued to pretend I was confident. I pretended I was brave. I pretended I was in control, amusing. And I pretended I wasn’t completely spun up about seeing him; that my insides weren’t shaking.
    “I’m so glad you’re a doctor, Jace. I really am. Congratulations.”
    He looked at the floor for a second, then met my gaze. “Thank you.”
    “Tell me about medical school, where you did your residency, everything.”
    He smiled and told me about medical school. He made it short; he didn’t talk about the newspaper articles that had been written about him, humble as always. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to cry on his shoulder. I wanted to tell him all my worries and problems. I was with the very best friend I had ever had in my life.
    Only he was so much more than my best friend, because I wanted to climb into a naked hug with him. I actually envisioned that, and could feel my face getting hot. I tried not to stare at his mouth. Tried not to remember kissing him, holding him close as I lay down and he lay on top of me in a tent, or by a river, or in a field on a blanket. I tried not to remember what that black hair felt like running through my fingers, and how that slight razor stubble