The Year of Living Shamelessly by Susanna Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

true.”
     
    “Even your father can tell you have the hots for Ryder.”
     
    Katie cringed and the blush sizzled in her cheeks. Her father was the quintessential absentminded professor. If he could see it . . . Katie gasped. “Do you think Ryder knows?”
     
    “He would have to be a very unobservant man to miss it.”
     
    “What?! And it never occurred to you to tell me? I think I’m going to die of embarrassment right now,” Katie muttered as she headed for the kitchen. There was a tower of sugar-frosted cookies that would make her feel better. “You couldn’t have pulled me aside at some point in the last year and told me that I was making a fool of myself?”
     
    “A fool? Why? Because you let your desires be known?”
     
    “Mom . . .” She grabbed for the top cookie and bit into it. The sweetness did nothing to coat her mood. She obviously needed more.
     
    “Look, I figured you needed time to work things out in your own way. And if there is anything to be embarrassed about”—her mother’s voice rose—“it should be the fact that you haven’t done everything you could to achieve your goals.”
     
    “Now, that is not true,” Katie said as she nibbled the cookie. “I have turned my world upside down in the past year. I have been very adventurous and opened myself up to new possibilities.” She went on dates she would never have agreed to in the past, and created a sexy image that took more courage than she ever thought she had. “Oh, and let’s not forget that I have logged more hours in the spa and gym than a normal person should.”
     
    “That’s all great,” her mother said, unimpressed, “but then what did you do to follow up? Nothing. You changed yourself and then you sat back and waited for Ryder to make the first move.”
     
    “What’s wrong with that?” Katie shoved the rest of the cookie into her mouth. She wanted Ryder to take action. It was part of her fantasy that he would go wild with desire for her.
     
    “Don’t you get it?” Exasperation tinged her mother’s voice. “It’s pretty obvious at this point that Ryder will never make the first move. You’re his best friend’s little sister, for one. And maybe he thinks he’s not good enough for you. Or maybe he thinks it would hurt his relationship with us. He might just be trying to be a gentleman.”
     
    Katie grabbed another cookie. “Ryder?” Sure, the guy had manners, but she always felt he was driven by primal instincts. He had a code of honor that might have been better suited to the Wild West. Ryder had gotten into a lot of fights at school, but he never swung first. Crime was rare in Crystal Bend, and when it happened, Ryder was always the first suspect. Katie knew it was because of the vandalism and joyriding he’d done in his youth, but he had grown out of that phase quickly. And though one or two women had named Ryder as the father of their babies, Katie had known it wasn’t true even before the DNA results confirmed her beliefs. Ryder knew what it was like to be abandoned by a parent. If he had been the father, he would have given his full support to the mother and child.
     
    “I think Ryder’s leaving before you tap into your power,” her mother said.
     
    “Tap into my what ?” Katie rolled her eyes. “Mom, I’m not one of the witches in Charmed .”
     
    “Every woman is powerful.”
     
    Here we go. . . . Katie leaned her forehead on the refrigerator. She was going to need another cookie.
     
    “And you, Katie Kramer, have power over Ryder,” her mother declared. “He knows it and he’s getting out of town before you figure it out.”
     
    She really wanted to believe it, but there was a problem with her mom’s theory. “You make it sound like he doesn’t want me.”
     
    “I think he doesn’t want to want you. It’s up to you to make something happen.”
     
    “And how am I supposed to do that?” She tossed her hands in the air. “I have seven days left.”
     
    “Hold