Always Mine Read Online Free PDF Page A

feet were propped on pillows. “They’re moving in together.”
    Owen looked over. “Huh?” Last he remembered, right before they’d been called out to the fire, Will had been wondering how two such smart single guys like themselves had somehow got themselves hitched.
    â€œI talked to Emily last night. Apparently what Will went through during the fire gave them both a clearer perspective on the promise they made in Las Vegas to love and cherish. They’re a real couple now.”
    â€œHuh?” he said again. Will had come by his hospital room but had not a said a word about what he’d worked out with his wife. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to rub it in. “Really?”
    â€œShe’s packing boxes as we speak, and his ring is back on her finger.”
    Owen’s gaze jumped from Izzy’s face to her left hand. She’d had a ring, too. A simple gold circle that had come as part of the “Blue Suede and Gold Band” wedding package at the Elvis Luvs U Wedding Chapel. He remembered how her hand had trembled in his as he’d slid it down the short length of her slim finger. He remembered the tremulous smile on her lips and the glow in her eyes and how that dizziness he felt now he’d felt then, too, because she was so damn pretty and so…
    His.
    He’d liked the thought of that. He’d believed that what they’d had was real and could really work.
    Before she’d left him and not bothered with a phone call or even an e-mail for thirty-seven days.
    What was real was that he’d been an idiot. They’d both been idiots in that wedding chapel. “What the hell were we thinking?” he ground out again.
    She shrugged, then studied the bedspread beside her. “I’d been having a pretty stressful time at the librarians’ convention. Not everyone is onboard with doing away with Dewey.”
    â€œYeah. I remember having to pull you from a debate with a couple of crazies wearing T-shirts reading ‘Melvil Now and Forever.’”
    â€œMelvil Dewey.” Izzy nodded. “Outside of Emily, I’d been a pariah for the five days before I met you. It was refreshing to have someone who looked at me with such, um…um…”
    â€œLust?” he provided helpfully.
    She gave him that pouting frown again. “I was going to say approval.”
    His snort wasn’t nearly as elegant as hers. “If that’s what you want to call it, Izzy.”
    â€œHuh.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Now I know why Bryce says he’s the romantic brother in the family.”
    Owen wondered just what the hell his brother was doing talking himself up to Owen’s wife. “Was he flirting with you?”
    â€œYou don’t have to look like it’s such a shock.”
    â€œNo. I—”
    â€œHe called me a chocolate-and-apricot fairy.”
    Chocolate-and-apricot fairy? Owen blinked. “My brother Bryce said that? He was flirting with you.”
    Izzy crossed her arms over her chest. “What? I don’t strike you as a tasty fairy?”
    No. He looked at her full mouth, the sparks in her brown eyes, the warm flush along her cheekbones. She struck him as…she just struck him. Right in the gut.
    And then lower.
    He curled his right hand into a fist to keep from reaching out for her. Even then, and even in the left hand that was casted, he could remember the texture of her soft, warm skin against his palms. He could remember sliding his hand down her neck and the thrum of her heartbeat against the pad of his thumb. His hands knew her, the sleek curve of her body from ribcage to hips, the dip at the small of her back, the resilient, round pillows of her behind when he urged her closer as they danced.
    If he closed his eyes, he could feel her warm breath against his face.
    He opened them, then jerked as he realized it really was her warm breath against his face. She was leaning over him to