Rescued (A McKenzie Ridge Novel Book 1) by Stephanie St. Klaire Read Free Book Online

and plenty of women lining up willing to scratch it, as often as needed. Sam was tempted to let him love her a couple rounds, warm those sheets for him, then leave him. Two birds, one man—take care of her own itch and get out before it got too serious and he left her. Her heart was safe that way.
    There wasn’t room in her life for a man, but maybe some lovin’, some hot sweaty, grip the sheets and scream lovin’. That’s all she could offer a man. He couldn’t leave what he didn’t have, and her heart would stay intact. She knew there was a genuine side to Dawson, a caring, considerate type, a great friend. She valued that newly found friendship too, and didn’t want to lose that. Maybe this was more than a hormone-enraged bout of temporary psychosis. Maybe there was more to this man than her previous assumptions. She was completely at war with herself and what she wanted from this man. Was she really considering this on any level?
    She pulled into her driveway unsure how she managed to get there in one piece, lost in her arousing thoughts of Dawson the entire way. When she walked in, she paused as a shiver drifted over her, raising the hairs ever so slightly on the back of her neck. The door was unlocked. She lived in a small, safe, uneventful town, but even so, she was always cautious and locked up, even if she was home.
    Had she been so distracted and excited for her non-date lunch with Dawson that she didn’t lock her door? She also left the lights on? Hairs still on end and instinct scratching suggesting something was askew, she ultimately settled with the idea that she really needed to get her crap together and under control. Paranoid and forgetful were not characteristics she carried. She was becoming a distracted, sex-crazed loon over a man, and that just wasn’t Sam.
    This was the third time in so many weeks she had come home to find that she had left something out of order. First it was the sink running, who does that? Then she came home to find the TV had been left on in her room and in the living room, she didn’t even remember having either on! Now the lights and door unlocked? She found it as funny as she found it odd. She was acting like a love struck teenager, annoying as all get out.
    Maybe after her date she would find her senses again, remember why she didn’t date, and pull it together. One night it was all she needed to purge her system of Dawson’s all-consuming, smexy, presence in her world. There was a big difference between a date and dating; dating required commitments that were easily broken and eventually lead to disappointment, and a date is just what she needed to cleanse her pallet and satisfy a certain ache.
    ***
    She walked next door to see Granny Lou and Everly for their weekly round table. Although they tended to get together more often than that, as their lives over lapped in so many ways, especially being neighbors, they still carved out time to sit and enjoy each other uninterrupted, to catch up. These were the days they each looked forward to, getting together to devour Granny’s famous snicker doodles or brownies, a couple days a week; girl time was important.
    Evie still lived with her grandmother in the small guesthouse that rested behind the main house in the far corner of the property.
    One day she would find a place of her own, but for now this was still home, as it always had been. Her personal dwellings were quite small and simple, as the main house was modest in size. It was just the two of them. She had her privacy, so she wasn’t in a hurry to move on, and Lou loved having her granddaughter in close proximity.
    Sam had her own small home, finally, after years in Granny Lou’s house. Sam loved that woman. It was hard to leave, even if it was just next door, Granny was home to her. Her own mother couldn’t be bothered to be anything but a reminder that Sam didn’t hit the gene pool lottery.
    When Sam’s mother, mother used loosely, found a home for her