The One You Can’t Forget
The Ones Who Got Away #2
By Roni Loren
“Absolutely unputdownable, delivers all of the feels! Roni Loren
is a new favorite. Loved this.”
—COLLEEN HOOVER, #1 New York Times bestseller
Most days Rebecca Lindt feels like an imposter…
The world admires her as a survivor. But that impression would
crumble if people knew her secret. She didn’t deserve to be the one who
got away. But nothing can change the past, so she’s thrown herself
into her work. She can’t dwell if she never slows down.
Wes Garrett is trying to get back on his feet after losing his
dream restaurant, his money, and half his damn mind in a vicious divorce. But
when he intervenes in a mugging and saves Rebecca—the attorney who helped his
ex ruin him—his simple life gets complicated.
Their attraction is inconvenient and neither wants more than a
fling. But when Rebecca’s secret is put at risk, both discover they could lose
everything, including what they never realized they needed: each other
She laughed and kissed him. This morning she'd melted down. But
somehow this man had her laughing and turned on only a few hours later.
Everything inside her felt buoyed.
She felt…light.
She'd forgotten what that felt like.
Wes parked the van in front of the
house and cut the engine. “Well, I’ll take it as a good sign that your car is
still here. If those guys showed up with your keys, they would’ve taken your
ride.”
Rebecca frowned. “No. I didn’t have my
car keys with me since I walked today, but at least everything looks the same
as how I left it. Plus, my car keys are hanging on a peg in the kitchen. They
wouldn’t be hard to find.”
Wesley eyed her. Her voice was
confident, but she kept smoothing the leg of her scrubs, her hands like nervous
birds not knowing where to settle. He had the weirdest urge to hug her and tell
her it was going to be all right, to take that fear from her. But a sure way to
freak her out even further would be for some strange dude she’d just met to hug
her. He was freaked out enough for both of them that he even had that
urge. “Hey, why don’t you tell me where your spare key is hidden, and I’ll go
in and check the house for you first.”
There. That was a reasonable, not
weird way to help.
She glanced his way, frowning. “If the
alarm’s on, I need to turn it off, and I don’t want to sit out here. That’ll
stress me out more than going in with you. I’m the only one who will be able to
tell if anything’s been moved anyway.”
“Fair enough. Whatever makes you feel
most comfortable is fine. But the minute something seems off or out of place,
we bail and call the cops. Pinch my arm or something to signal me.”
Her frown deepened, a little line
appearing between her brows, as if she couldn’t quite figure him out.
He couldn’t stop his smile. “What’s
wrong? You look like you’re trying to figure out a really hard math problem.”
“I wouldn’t make this face for math.
I’m good at math.” She let out a breath. “I guess I’m just trying to figure out
why you’re being so nice to me. You don’t…know me.”
“Does that matter? If I knew you,
would I not want to help you out?”
She stiffened. “What?”
He tilted his head. “I mean, are you
secretly some evil comic-book villain who’s about to take over the city? Or do
you have plans to kill me and store my body in your basement when we get
inside?”
Her pinched expression flattened into
something droll. “Austin houses don’t have basements.”
“Whew.” He wiped his brow. “I’m safe.”
She snorted and then covered her nose
and mouth like she was surprised the sound had escaped. “You’re kind of
strange, Wesley Garrett.”
He shrugged. “I get that a lot.” And
that was a helluva lot better than what most people probably called him these
days. “Now, are we going to bravely search your house like two TV detectives?
Because I am so down for that right now. I need to bang open doors and yell,
‘Clear!’”
She laughed, the soft, husky sound
filling the space between them and sending a pleasant ripple through him. The
feeling was so unfamiliar that it stalled his breath for a second. How long had
it been since he’d been around someone he could simply joke with and relax
around? Someone who wasn’t looking at him like he was damaged goods? Or who
wasn’t checking him for signs of a backslide?
He didn’t get clean-slate
conversations like this anymore. Not with his family. Not with friends. Not
even with himself. Rebecca felt like a gulp of clean, fresh air. He wanted to
close his eyes and inhale. In this moment, he could be a man with no past. He
could be whoever he wanted to be. And right now, he wanted to be the guy who
was making this woman laugh.
She cocked her head. “You say that
like you’ve been planning to do this TV detective routine for a while.”
“It’s a life goal,” he said solemnly.
“I mean, I’ve done it at home alone, but that really isn’t as fun. Plus, it
pisses off the neighbors. All those banging doors.”
She laughed again, and he felt like
he’d won some kind of prize. She seemed like someone who didn’t give those
laughs away easily.
“Now all we need are weapons,” he
declared.
She reached into the bag of takeout
and pulled out the eco-friendly cornstarch forks Dev used in place of plastic
cutlery. “How’s this?”
“Perfect. We can go for the eyes.” He
took his fork and grabbed the keys. “Let’s do this.”
“I’m ready.” Some of their playing
around must’ve distracted her from her nerves because when Rebecca got out of
the van, her shoulders seemed looser and there was a tentative smile on her
face. She nodded toward the house and set her fork on the hood. He followed suit,
since if he really had to take action, he’d need his hands free. “My extra key
is by the back door.”
They headed around the house and into
the small backyard. She hunched near an overgrown herb garden and fished
around, finally coming up with one of those fake rocks. She flipped it over and
keyed in a three-digit code on a spinner combination lock.
Wes snapped a leaf off one of her
plants and inhaled the scent. “Mmm, lemon thyme. You’ve got quite a collection
out here. Cilantro. Oregano. Italian parsley. I’m a little jealous.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him.
“I honestly have no idea what most of them are or what to do with all of them.
I had the house landscaped when I moved in, and I guess the gardeners picked
the perfect spot because they grow like crazy. Except the basil, which was the
one I actually knew how to use. That one was a goner during the first
hundred-degree day of summer.”
“Basil is a sensitive soul.” It was on
the tip of his tongue to tell her he could show her how to use the herbs, but
he held the offer back. His brother had been right. Making her laugh was like
some weird sort of drug to his starved system, but she didn’t need a guy
flirting with her right now. It couldn’t go anywhere anyway. He didn’t date,
for one. And even if he was doing the casual hookup thing these days, she
didn’t strike him as the type who’d be down for that, especially with someone
like him. He had nothing to offer her besides garden-care tips.
Barnes
& Noble * iBooks * Indiebound * Amazon
No comments:
Post a Comment