Chasing Jane by Noelle Adams Read Free Book Online Page A

the village, look at the various sites connected to Austen and her
family, and then have dinner in a pub.
    Things are back to normal between me and Nate, and I have a
really good time. I think he does too, although I occasionally catch him
looking at me with a strangely watchful expression. I hope he doesn’t suspect
that I’ve been feeling things for him I shouldn’t be, but he’s always been
sharp and observant.
    I’ll have to do better about hiding it. I’ll have to do
better about not feeling that way.
    Since we’re both tired after a long day and an extended
walk, we decide to just take it easy this evening. I soak in the hot tub, but
tonight Nate doesn’t join me. He sits by the fireplace and messes around on his
tablet.
    I assume he’s doing email, but I don’t actually ask him.
    It’s probably good for us to have a little time apart, but I
feel strangely lonely as I sit in the hot water and think about Nate.
    I should write to Rochester tonight, but I’m not sure I even
feel like it. I don’t know what happened over the last two days, but my
enthusiasm for him has definitely dampened.
    I feel relaxed but a little depressed as I finally get out
and go to change into my pajamas. When I emerge from my room, Nate has
disappeared, and his closed bedroom door tells me where he is.
    I sigh as I stare at his shut door and encourage myself with
the idea that things will be normal again tomorrow morning.
    After I go into the kitchen to get a bottle of water, I
notice that things are scattered around the living area, so I automatically go
to pick them up and return them to their places. I pick up Nate’s empty coffee
cup and his tablet.
    He must have just gone to his bedroom because his tablet has
dimmed but not gone to sleep. As I carry it with the mug to the kitchen, I
can’t help but notice the word Jane on the screen.
    I’m not a particularly nosy person. I try to respect other
people’s privacy—particularly Nate’s. I would never read his email or personal messages
without his permission.
    But my name is right there on his tablet screen so I find
myself tapping the surface to brighten it enough to read.
    I freeze when I see the message I wrote to Rochester this
morning.
    It’s right there, next to the name Jane and the icon of Jane
Austen’s portrait that I use on the dating site. The most obvious explanation
is that he’s somehow snuck on to my profile on the site, so he can read the
messages between me and Rochester, but I don’t believe that for a moment.
    Nate would never do that.
    So I scan farther down the screen and blink when I see
Rochester’s name and a textbox, in which are written a couple of paragraphs.
    This is not a message that Rochester has sent me. I’ve never
seen it before, although it’s obviously his style and personality. It’s only
partly finished. In fact, the last sentence has been left hanging.
    It takes me embarrassingly long before I figure out what is
going on. In my defense, it’s such a bizarre notion, so far from the way I’ve
ever understood the world, that it’s not a conclusion I would ever come to, if
the evidence hadn’t been clearly leading directly there.
    I click on the profile button for Rochester, still unwilling
to believe what seems to be happening here. I read over the profile—some of which
I’ve seen before and some of which has been hidden from me until the two
months’ communication period is over.
    There’s no doubt about it. Nate is Rochester.
    I’m paralyzed with shock and pain and bewilderment, and I
can’t move from where I’m standing in the kitchen with the tablet in my hand.
    Even when I hear Nate coming out of his bedroom, his
footsteps in the hallway, I can’t move—not even to keep him from knowing I’ve
been invading his privacy.
    My invasion isn’t half as bad as his invasion of me.
    “What are you doing?” he demands, sounding surprised,
slightly outraged, as anyone would be if they saw someone snooping on