Gabby Revealed (Finding Perfect) by Amy Gregory Read Free Book Online

This nervous wreck shit was going to be obvious, and John would be the happiest little camper to point out to Shane that she normally wasn’t like this. Cool, calm, and collected were gone, vanished at the mere thought of being close to him. “What am I going to do?” Gabby whispered.
    Pacing, she glanced at the clock on the stove. She’d stalled long enough; it was time to face the two men waiting for her in a little bungalow down the sidewalk. Heat rushed up her chest and over her cheeks. She didn’t want to be excited. She wanted to be mad as hell. Set up. Totally, shamelessly set up by…a knock at her door interrupted her thoughts.
    Furrowing her brow , she crossed the wood planks. The warped one by the door creaked like normal, announcing her to the person on the other side. No peephole needed in her town, she turned the antique handle and swung open the unlocked door.
    Blinking, she was stunned by his presence. “Shane? What the hell are you doing here?”
     
     
     
    There was no metal to be heard as a chain slid from being taut, keeping the door secured from an intruder. Gabby didn’t ask who it was. She happened to open her apartment up to any old Joe who knocked. Like it was safe? With a scolding on the tip of his tongue, Shane took a deep breath and remembered he wasn’t in New York. He wasn’t in a big city where he had to stay on his toes. Hell, for all he knew the sidewalks in Renlend rolled up after dark.
    “Hi , darling.”
    Her wide eyes told him more than her words, pink streaked across her face and Gabby turned with a growl, leaving the door wide open for him. He assumed she meant him to follow, so he did. Her boots tromped across the scratched wood floor, her anger muffled momentarily by the braided rug she had by her leather couch, but once she’d crossed it, the noise her boots made bounced off the walls of her open space. If she thought she was fooling him, Gabby had another thing coming. However, Shane got a perverse thrill off seeing her fighting herself.
    He shut the door behind him and neared her as she stood at the kitchen sink, her back to him. Glancing around at her tidy loft, he took in the shelves full of picture frames and an eclectic mixture of books. A ladder-back chair in a corner held a stack of what had to be handmade quilts. It wasn’t full of tchotchkes, but it was homey, almost rustic. A place where he’d feel like he could put his feet up on her coffee table without getting yelled at like he had when he’d still lived with his parents. Hell, he’d gotten yelled at for touching anything glass for fear of leaving fingerprints. Shane pushed memories of his mother out of his head, this slice of Heaven wasn’t the place for the Queen Bitch or the Royal Dick he used to have as a father. Not when her couch looked soft and inviting. In that moment, he knew why he never went home to visit once he left for college. It never really bothered him if he worked late. He didn’t grow up in a home, and his shoebox-sized apartment sure as hell didn’t feel like a “home.” It was sleek and modern, and he spent an arm and a leg for his Manhattan address, but in this open, airy loft, of a woman he barely knew, he felt more relaxed and at home than he ever had before. His heart clenched, both pain of missing out and pain of wanting her. He needed to be away, far, far away from the East Coast and his last name. He needed space, air, and freedom to be happy.
    Slamming the large stockpot around in her ceramic sink shook Shane from his second epiphany in less than twenty-four hours. The steam started to rise from the faucet as Gabby scrubbed the pot, her muscles bunching as she waged a full-on attack. She’d yet to turn around and face him, let alone say a word to him. Judging by the shock on her face, when John invited him for dinner, Shane guessed Gabrielle James did not do surprises.
    Normally Shane didn’t care for the unknown either. He liked things planned, organized , and