Night Moves by Thea Devine Read Free Book Online

deliberate, she thought. They’d all swum in the pond since they could walk. It had to be this man, this day, and their history. He was as appealing as a seventeen-year-old and a hundred times more formidable as he stood there looking
up at her, his hands planted on those narrow male hips. Oh, Lord, those hips...
    Truck was too beguiling, too hot, and he was watching her too carefully. That intense awareness was there, sparking across the water, lifting her toward him to a place where she could crash and burn. It was time to end this. She couldn’t afford to be sidetracked. Carrie scrambled to her feet. “Need a hand?”
    Again that smile, that knowing devastating smile. “I’ll take what I can get,” he murmured, grasping her outstretched fingers and levering himself up onto the path.
    Truck grabbed his boots and shoved his feet into them, then followed her up the path, admiring her long legs, the movement of her bottom in what were a pair of very conservative shorts, the tumble of her hair coming loose from her topknot, and her very no-nonsense attitude.
    â€œThere’s soda, lemonade and tea in the fridge,” Carrie said as they came up on the porch. “Help yourself.”
    Truck returned with two tall frosty glasses of lemonade and handed her one, and then nudged his hip against the railing, angling his body so he could look out over the pond.
    â€œI could put in the dock if you want,” he said.
    â€œThe wood’s all rotten. I’m going to have to replace it, I guess someday. It’s not a high priority right now,” Carrie said.
    â€œAnd you can always launch from Jeannie’s dock if you want. Or mine.”
    â€œRight.” Neighbors. Always there, always lending that helping hand. Carrie felt uncomfortable, as if even this offer came with strings. Or maybe it was just that Truck was offering, and it was too much already that he
was working in her house at a neighborly consideration of her finances.
    â€œSo what’s the real story, Carrie?”
    She cringed. She had expected the question, though maybe not this soon, but it had been in the air from the moment she said she couldn’t afford the repairs. She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to tell him, especially after that moment of connection at the pond. It would be so much easier to spin a juicy little lie and retain that high-powered image. Since there was nothing to say she wouldn’t be in Paradise for the next ten years, let alone the next ten weeks, it was time to stop hiding.
    She swallowed the lump in her throat along with the last gulp of lemonade. “I lost an account and I lost my job.” She said it slowly and deliberately, as much to hear herself say the words—again—as to give him the explanation.
    It still felt unreal as if she were on vacation and there was a definite end to this exile from her professional life. After all didn’t she still have the fantasy that someone from the agency would call and say it had all been a mistake, that Elliott had confessed to his chicanery and given her the credit for the...?
    â€œTough,” Truck said, pinning her with a dark unfathomable gaze.
    Carrie pulled herself out of her reverie. “Brutal.”
    â€œSo there’s really no money.”
    â€œA severance package and some profit-sharing. My motorcycle and the clothes on my back,” she said succinctly, as if enumerating her minuscule assets would reinforce the reality.
    â€œAnd the house,” Truck said gently. “You do have the house.”
    â€œAnd the house,” Carrie agreed.

    â€œAnd your friends,” he added, noting the defiant spark in her eyes as he said it. He’d deliberately goaded her. Carrie hated any inference that she couldn’t fend for herself. She had always been a fiercely independent girl who had never depended on anyone, and now she was a woman who had to depend on everyone.
    Especially him.