WOULD-BE CHRISTMAS WEDDING by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

dwelling on all the things that could go wrong. There were already so many things wrong with this situation, starting with his general trepidation about ruining tomorrow’s event, even by necessity. Yet dwelling on what could go right filled his head with thoughts of a more personal nature. If he’d suspected this kind of complication, he never would have opened an online dating account with which to lure her.
    “I apologize,” she said suddenly.
    He questioned her with raised eyebrow.
    “I’ve been rambling. I know you donated to the charity, but that doesn’t mean you want to know about the minutiae involved behind the scenes. It’s just filled all of my waking hours these last weeks.”
    “I enjoy listening to you.” It might be the truest thing he’d said all night. Her smooth voice was like cool water after a long run on a hot summer day. It just rolled over him, easing the tension he’d been hauling around since his first contact with Isely.
    “Uh-huh.” She rolled her full lips between her teeth as if she was trying not to laugh. “You glazed over for a minute.”
    “If I glazed over, it was because I was thinking about things I shouldn’t be thinking about.”
    “Work?”
    “No.” He loaded the word with enough meaning to imply he’d been thinking something much more personal and immediate. Intimate. And while it wasn’t another outright lie, he needed to avoid all of the above. If he kept her out of Isely’s clutches, she would never need to know the difference.
    He reached across the table for her hand, then hesitated just before he touched her, giving her a chance to retreat. She didn’t. Her gaze on his, she turned her hand over and used her thumb to trace the long scar that curved down the length of his index finger.
    It was all he could do not to flinch from the gentle contact.
    “Tell me about yourself.”
    “Not much to tell.” He was a spy who didn’t exist, a man who wouldn’t exist if he didn’t find a way to rein in Isely once and for all. He looked away, took in the perimeter of the room once more. “It was all in my profile. I’m not the sort to hold back.”
    She tipped her head to the side and traced that scar again. He wanted to tremble.
    “I don’t remember anything in your profile about this.”
    With her touching it, he was having trouble remembering the incident himself. The scar was a souvenir from a mission in Dubai. It had required minor surgery and months of rehabilitation for the nerves to recover and settle back to normal. If she kept caressing that thin white line, the nerves might never settle again.
    “I slammed it in a car door and wound up needing minor surgery. Interesting process, really.” He tilted his hand to look at it himself, but didn’t withdraw from her touch.
    “The recovery?”
    “No. The surgery.”
    Her pale eyebrows arched and her whole body went still. He found himself fascinated by the reaction, wondering how she might react in other situations. “You watched them operate?”
    “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “They gave me a nerve block.” Since he’d gone into the mission alone, he hadn’t had anyone around to watch his back. General anesthesia would have left him too vulnerable.
    “That’s...”
    Vulgar, sick, disgusting. He was ready for all of those words and worse.
    “Amazing,” she said, stroking her thumb across the ridge of his knuckles.
    When had such a basic touch turned so damn hot? “Pardon me?”
    “You heard me. Very few people have that kind of curiosity. Or courage.”
    “I don’t know about courage.” If he’d been wearing a tie, he would’ve tugged at it. Her eyes held something he’d rarely seen aimed his way—admiration. It left him speechless. He pulled his hand away. “Maybe I’m just an incurable insomniac.”
    She laughed, and he almost laughed with her, except one of Isely’s crew chose that moment to lumber into the restaurant bar. The dark-haired man, whom Holt knew as Cal, took up