Cathryn Fox by Regina Read Free Book Online

tomorrow.” Her voice was rough with emotion when she spoke, and he spotted something in her eyes that he’d never seen before, something that gave him the strangest sense that she was afraid. But afraid of what? Of trying again? Or was it something else?
    She gestured toward the top of the bluff, to where they’d left their clothes. “I’m just going to get my stuff and go. Okay?”
    His stomach knotted. No, it was not okay. Frustrated, he threaded his fingers through his wet hair. “Ally, you don’t have to run away.” He waved his hand back and forth between the two of them. “I thought we were doing okay.”
    “We always do okay with this, Carter.” She forced a laugh. “You know as well as I do that it’s the other stuff we suck at.”
    As his hurt turned to anger, Carter wanted to protest, but he really didn’t want to argue. Wouldn’t that simply prove her point that most times they mixed as well as oil and water? When she began trembling from head to toe, he put his arm around her to offer his heat, and she sucked in a tight breath.
    Carter slipped a hand under her chin and forced her eyes to his. “People can change, Ally.”
    She gave him a dubious look. “I really wanted tonight, Carter. We both did. Maybe I should have tried harder to keep it from happening, but I got caught up in the moment.” She stopped to poke him in the chest. “I got caught up in you. Just like I always do.” She frowned and let her hand drop to her side. “I thought we both understood that tonight was just about sex. A one-time thing.”
    Her emotions were so transparent, and everything in the way she touched him, made love to him beneath the stars, and kissed him with unabashed passion told him that was pure bullshit. No one could kiss like that and feel nothing.
    What is really going on with her?
    “So you’re saying you just want to be friends?”
    “Yes.” Her voice sounded tight.
    He took a long moment to think about it. Okay, they could be friends for now, but he reconciled himself to the fact that he still had a month to convince her they belonged together. A month to convince her he’d changed his ways.
    Carter tried for casual, although there was nothing casual about them. “Okay, at least let me walk you to your car. Friends do that after engaging in outdoor sex and skinny-dipping right?”
    The corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile. “Yes, Carter. I believe friends do that.”
    Together they made their way to the bluff to gather their clothes. Both lost in their own thoughts, a quiet fell over them as they walked to the hill. Carter took the lead to guide the way in the dark but noticed that as the tide moved in, the spray from the surf saturated the ground and made climbing the rocky embankment much more challenging.
    He reached for Ally’s hand. “Careful—” Before he could even get the words out, she slipped and landed with a thud. Air whooshed from her lungs, followed by a sharp cry that cut through the night and had Carter’s stomach lurching with panic.
    “Jesus, Ally. Are you okay?” Carter climbed down and crouched beside her, and that’s when he noticed her foot jammed between two boulders.
    “My ankle,” she cried out.
    Carter felt his way along her leg, testing the bones around her ankle. “Can you move it?”
    Ally tried her toes as he gripped one rock and pulled it away to free her foot.
    She winced as he cupped her heel into his hands and gently examined her. “I don’t think anything is broken, but we should take you to the hospital to make sure.”
    She wiggled her toes. “No. I think I sprained it. I just need to get home and rest it.”
    Carter cursed under his breath, taking full responsibility for her fall. He’d brought her here and goddammit he should have taken better care of her.
    “It’s okay.” In tune with his emotions, she put her hand on his shoulder to placate him. “I’m okay, really.”
    His mood darkened. “It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have