The Man She Left Behind by Janice Carter Read Free Book Online

relatively young ages, they’d have enjoyed a lucrative retirement from the manor. Leigh’s eyes stung with tears. She closed them for a moment and so didn’t notice the approaching truck roll to a stop ahead until she’d almost walked into it.
    “Whoa! I hear folks in New York City have a blatant disrespect for traffic, but this is Ocracoke an’ there’s only you an’ me on this whole stretch o’ road. So what’re the odds of you makin’ contact with this pickup? Care to lay any bets?”
    Leigh had to smile at Spence McKay’s exaggerated drawl. She crossed over to the driver’s side. “I’m not the betting kind unfortunately.”
    Spence lowered his sunglasses to take a good look at her. “Really, though. What are the chances, I ask you, of running into the same person three times in—what? Less than twenty-four hours?”
    Leigh grinned. “In New York? Or here in Ocracoke?”
    He shrugged. “Wherever. Defies credibility, I think. Maybe we should contact that book of world records publisher.”
    “You might just have something,” Leigh said, laughing.
    Spence found he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Damn, she was gorgeous. Finally, his voice husky with memory, he said, “I was just heading down the road to get some breakfast at the new bakery-deli place. Care to come?” “I don’t have any money with me.”
    He waved a dismissive hand. “It’s on me. Hop in.”
    Leigh climbed up into the passenger side, resigned to the fact that her morning run wasn’t working out at all as she’d planned and not really minding. “I can’t be long,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of cleaning and sorting to do today.”
    “It’s not even six-thirty. I’d say you have time for coffee.” He shifted the truck into drive and pulled out onto the road. “Kinda early to be up running,” he said.
    “I woke up before dawn and thought it’d be nice to see the sunrise. Besides, I haven’t done my morning run for a few days.”
    He glanced over at her. “You run in the city?”
    “Every day if I can. Just after daybreak.”
    There was a moment’s pause before he asked, “You go with someone?”
    “Always,” she said. “The woman in the apartment next to mine is a runner, too.”
    “That’s good. Must be kinda dangerous jogging around New York City.”
    “New York’s probably no more dangerous than any other place as long as you’re smart about where you go.”
    “Still, it sure as heck isn’t like jogging around Ocracoke.”
    “True.” Leigh thought about how the city was always alive anytime night or day, with people and vehicles moving about. But on the island there were sections of the route she ran where she might have been the only person on earth. Hard to say which she preferred.
    The pickup turned into an almost empty parking lot.
    “Is it open?” Leigh asked.
    “Better be,” Spence said, switching off the engine. “They’ve been advertising the past few weeks. ’Course I haven’t made it until today. Hard to change horses midstream.”
    “Is the Village Café still in business, then?”
    “It is, but Merv and Lou are finding it tough competing with these new places.”
    Leigh caught up with him in front of the bakery. He’d always been a fast walker. She remembered struggling to keep up as he’d forged a trail through the sea grass or the marsh when she, Jen and he had explored the island.
    They paused inside the door a moment, their eyes adjusting to the change in light. A man sat at a table to their right, stirring coffee and unfolding a newspaper. A woman was wiping off the counter that stretched from the cash register to a glass-covered display case. Trays of baked goods were shelved on a tiered aluminum trolley behind the case.
    “Mornin’.” Spencer’s voice boomed around the café.
    The woman nodded, motioning into the room with her dishrag. “Seat yourselves. I’ll be right with you. Coffee?”
    “Please.”
    Spence stood aside for Leigh to pass. Then, his