A Season for Hope (Sarra Cannon) Read Online Free PDF

call forgotten.
    “Bailey,” he says.
    “Judd.” I raise my hand in a salute, then feel stupid.
    He shakes his head. “Twice in one day,” he says. “Lucky.”
    My hands tingle. “Lucky for you, maybe.” I point to the gash on my head.
    He laughs. “I really am sorry about that,” he says. “Can I buy you a drink to make it up to you?”
    He hitches his thumb back toward the door.
    I am breathless. Is this what the universe had in mind for me all along? “Sure, why not?”
    He puts his phone back in his pocket, then pushes his hair behind his ears. His face is freshly shaved and when he moves, I catch the scent of him on the wind. Instead of the worn jeans he was wearing earlier, he’s changed into a pair of dark jeans that hug the muscles in his thighs. His dark navy button-up shirt is open slightly at the top, showing off the smooth chest beneath.
    “Did you need to make a call?” I ask.
    He opens the door and the music spills out into the alley. “It’s not important,” he says. “I was just checking in on a project I've got going in the labs. What were you doing out here, anyway?”
    I laugh, knowing he has to notice my red eyes and tear-stained face. I probably have raccoon eyes from my mascara at this point. If he still wants to buy me a drink after seeing me cry twice in one day, this guy’s insane. “I was having an epiphany,” I say.
    “Oh really?” He gives me that smile again. That half-smile that makes him look like he has a secret. A sexy secret I’m dying to know. “What kind of epiphany?”
    “Buy me that drink and maybe I’ll tell you.”
    Judd leads me toward the bar. We sit down on a corner so that our bar-stools are facing each other instead of just side-by-side. I want to hide my face. I have to look horrible. At least Monica stayed true to her promise and brought me to a dark place.
    “What do you want?” Judd asks. He motions toward the bartender and orders a beer for himself.
    Out of habit, I order a Jack and coke. It’s my go-to drink when I’m with Preston. He made a joke once that I was more fun when I was drinking Jack Daniels, so I started ordering it all the time. I don’t even really like it that much. All I’ve cared about for the past three years is whether Preston wanted me to like something.
    “Wait,” I call out to the bartender. He grabs Judd’s beer from the cooler and walks back toward us.
    “Can I get something else instead?”
    “Of course, you want another shot of Jagermeister?”
    I shake my head. I don’t even know what to order. I just know I don’t care if I never have another Jack and coke in my life. “What can you make that’s Christmas-y? Something strong that tastes good.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I see Judd raise an eyebrow at the word strong. He takes a quick drink of his beer. “Sounds like you have your work cut out for you, Beau.”
    “I think I have just the thing,” Beau says. “If you don’t like it, I’ll make you something else.”
    “Do you guys know each other?” I ask Judd when the bartender walks away.
    Judd nods. “Yeah, he’s one of my good buddies. I hang out here on the weekends when I’m not working in the lab or studying,” he says. “Sometimes he slips me free drinks. It’s a perk of being friends with a bartender.”
    “Ah,” I say, swiveling on my stool. “So when you said you’d buy me a drink, what you meant was that you’d buy me a free drink?”
    He cuts his eyes toward me and one side of his mouth curls into a smile, that I have to say gets my heart racing a little bit. How did I miss how good looking this guy is?
    “Maybe,” he says. “Dating on a budget 101. Find a bar where you can get free drinks.”
    I laugh. Dating on a budget was never in Preston’s vocabulary. He spent money like it grew on trees. I guess for him it really kind of does.
    Still, the fact that Judd just used the word ‘ dating ’ sends a funny jolt through my mid-section.
    When Beau comes back, he’s