19 Headed for Trouble Read Online Free PDF Page A

French Quarter, he knew that even though she’d given him her phone number—in Hartford freakin’ Connecticut—he wasn’t going to call her.
    He liked her too damn much.
    She’d told him about her fiancé. Ex-fiancé. The sumbitch had dumped her two months before their weddingbecause—the asshole had claimed—their lives together would be too boring.
    Boring? In what dimension? She was funny and sweet and smart and—God
damn!
—sexy as all get out. The entire time they sat there, sipping their coffee and talking themselves hoarse, he couldn’t stop thinking about how perfect and soft her lips would feel if he kissed her.
    But when he’d told her—just a little—about being a SEAL, about being stationed in San Diego, about going TDY in places where American service persons weren’t exactly welcome, Frank knew that even though she claimed to be looking for excitement, hooking up with a man like him, who risked his life as a matter of course, would be too much for her.
    Oh, she didn’t say it in so many words. And, in fact, it was just after that that she’d given him her business card with her personal phone number in curvy handwriting on the back.
    But Hartford to San Diego …? The sheer distance alone howled of unpreventable disaster. And now here they were, with dawn lighting the sky behind them. Standing just outside the ornate gilded doors of her hotel.
    “So,” Rosie said.
    Yeah. So. Her flight home wasn’t until that evening. She didn’t
have
to run upstairs to pack. Not right away.
    But she was tired. He might’ve been used to going without sleep for long periods of time, but she was unable to hide her obvious fatigue.
    Still, she didn’t move any closer to that fancy door.
    She was looking, too, as if she wanted something more from him than a handshake and a
Nice to meet you
.
    But no way was he kissing her. No way was he stepping hip deep into
that
temptation. Except, damn, hewanted to, and he knew she knew because he could not, for the life of him, stop staring at her mouth.
    “Do you want,” she started, and he knew she wasn’t going to invite him to her room—she had roommates. That just wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight.
    Not ever.
    “I better go.” He cut her off, unwilling or maybe just plain unable to turn down whatever she was about to offer.
    But she spoke over him. “—to meet for a late lunch?”
    “I can’t,” he said. It wasn’t a lie. “My flight’s at oh-eight-thirty.”
    “Oh,” she said. “Wow. Well, then, you better …”
    “Go,” he agreed, yet still stood there, like a fool. Wishing for things he couldn’t have. Knowing that he had to turn and walk away. He had to go back to the Sheraton and pack—and toss her business card into the trash can under the bathroom counter.
    “I know you aren’t going to call me,” she said softly. “It’s okay. Don’t feel bad. I know that … Well, maybe in another lifetime, you know? I just … I loved last night. I loved meeting you.”
    She touched him then, only briefly, her fingers cool against his face, and then she was gone, the gilded door shutting silently behind her.
    It was for the best. It was definitely for the best. Those words drummed through Frank’s head as he passed the park where artists and vendors, palm readers and bead sellers had been set up, even after dark, even in the rain. It was empty now, littered with trash from the hardcore partying of the previous night.
    It was for the best. For the best
.
    Mother
fucking
fool, mother
fucking
fool.…
    Frank violently kicked garbage—plastic beer cups—out of his way. One wasn’t quite empty and it flew throughthe air, nearly hitting a woman who still sat by the park’s wall, raincoat up and over her head.
    Her wooden sign was still out:
Palms read, five dollars. Blind Maggie Sees the Truth
was lettered in smaller print beneath the picture of a hand. She started awake—she’d been asleep sitting there—and even though she wore dark