Forsaking All Others by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online Page B

believe we’re in the heart of the city.”
    “Haven’t you ever been here before?” He still faced away from her, and she looked up at blond hair curling over his upturned collar, then scanned the peaceful woods again.
    “No. Not up here. I’ve been through the park, but I never bothered to come up here and see what was at the end of the trail.”
    He stood in silence, studying the sky, his head tipped sharply back. After a long time he said, “It’s peaceful, isn’t it?”
    “Mmm-hmm.” Even the birds had stopped twittering. She realized she could actually hear Rick Lang’s breathing. They fell silent again, two people whose busy lives afforded too little of such elemental joys as this. There came a faint popping, as if bark were stretching in its sleep, growing restless for spring.
    “This is what I miss about not living where I was born and raised.”
    “Are you a country boy?”
    “Yup.” Suddenly he seemed to grow aware of how long they’d been standing motionless, knee-deep in snow. “Your feet must be frozen.”
    “It’s worth it,” she replied, and found it true.
    “Better get you back though, and steal that log if we’re going to.”
    “I guess.” Still, she was reluctant to return to the highway, to the sound of cars that was totally absent here, to the road signs instead of boles and branches.
    “Can you even feel your feet anymore?”
    Grinning, she looked down, then back up at him. His face was almost obscured by oncoming dark. “What feet?”
    He laughed. “Just a minute, stay where you are,” he ordered, then jogged off the path, circled around her, hunched over, and said, “Climb on.”
    “What!”
    “Climb on.” His butt pointed her way. “I got you into this mess, I’ll get you out.”
    “Won’t do you a bit of good. They’re gone. The feet are gone. Can’t feel a thing down there,” she said woefully, staring at her hidden calves.
    “Get the hell on, you’re making me feel guiltier by the minute.”
    “Oh, lord, if I do, you’ll be the one with the slipped disc.”
    “From a willow whip like you? Don’t make me laugh.”
    So she clambered aboard Rick Lang’s back, and he clamped a strong arm around each leg. She found herself with her cheek pressed against the back of his jacket, gloved hands clasped around his neck as she rode piggyback to the parking lot. Childish, foolish . . . fun, she thought.
    He smelled of cold air and slightly of something scented, like soap or shaving lotion. Bumping along, she tried to think back to how she had managed to end up in such a spot. She could scarcely remember. Only that it had been painless, fun, and that somehow he’d managed to make her laugh again.
    At the van she slipped off him and they loaded the log without mishap, but by that time Allison was shivering like a wet pup.
    “Do you want me to drive back?” Rick asked. “You could stick your feet up underneath the heater and start thawing out.”
    “No, they’re too cold. If I thaw them out that fast I’ll lose ’em for sure.”
    “Minnesota girls!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Never know how to dress for the weather, even though they’re born and raised in it.”
    “How do you know I was born and raised in it?”
    “Were you?”
    “Nope, South Dakota.”
    “Hey, you wanna talk all night or get back to town so you can thaw out?”
    When they were halfway back to the city, the headlights picking the way through the dark, she asked, “Are you always this way?”
    “What way?”
    She shrugged. “I don’t know . . . amusing.”
    She felt his eyes scan her for a moment before he turned away and answered, “When I’m happy.”
    Memories of Jason came flooding back, warning her again of how sweet words such as these had hurt her once before, led her into a trap that had been sprung with such suddenness that she hadn’t yet healed. Thisman was too new, too irresistible, too perfect. She was reacting to the loss of Jason, spinning Rick into a