At Last Read Online Free PDF Page B

aboutgetting naked and licking every inch of her body. But he absolutely disagreed on this.
    Vehemently.
    Instead of voicing that, he gave her a nudge into the tent. “Zip up behind you.”
    When she did, he let out a long breath and stood there in the dark between the fire and the tent for a long beat.
You’re an idiot
, he told himself, and shaking his head, he moved closer to the flames. Leaning back, getting comfortable, or as comfortable as he could without a sweatshirt or his sleeping bag, he stared at the sky. Normally, this never failed to relax him, but tonight it took a long time.
    A very long time.
    It was his body’s fault, he decided. He definitely had a few parts at odds with each other, but in the end, it was his brain that reminded him of the bottom line. He’d come here to Lucky Harbor for some peace and quiet, to be alone.
    To forget the hell his life in Chicago had turned into.
    And it
had
been complete hell, having to turn in his own partner for being on the take, then facing the censure of his fellow cops.
    And then there’d been his marriage.
    Shelly had never liked his hours or the danger he’d faced every day. In return, he’d never liked that she hadn’t taken her own safety seriously enough. And when it had all gone bad and she’d gotten hurt… well, that had been another sort of hell entirely.
    And his fault. He 100 percent blamed himself.
    That had made two of them. Shelly had told him in her parting shot that he was better off alone, andhe honestly believed that to be true. All this time he’d thought it…
    At some point during this annoying inner reflection, he must have finally fallen asleep because he woke up instantly at the sound of Amy’s scream.

Chapter 4
     

     
    A day without chocolate is like a day without sunshine.
    B reathless, heart pounding, Amy lay flat on her back in the pitch dark.
Shit.
Okay, so that was the
last
time she ever tiptoed into the woods by herself to find a nice, big tree to pee behind. Her downfall had been the walk back to camp. It’d been so dark, and her flashlight had given enough light for exactly nothing.
    And she’d slipped on something and slid.
    Down.
    And down.
    She’d lost her flashlight on the descent, and now she couldn’t see much except the vague black outline of the canopy of trees far above her. Or at least she hoped those were trees. Claustrophobic from the all-encompassing blackness, and more than a little worried about creepy crawlies, she sat up and winced. Her left wrist was on fire. So was her butt. Great, she’d broken her butt. She could see the headline on Facebook now—
Amy Michaels cracks her crack during a potty break on the mountain.
    The worst part was that this was all her own fault. She was street smart and had been cocky enough to believe she could handle herself. Her mistake, because she should have known better—bad things could happen anywhere. They’d always happened to her, from back as far as when her grandma had died. Back then, a twelve-year-old Amy had gone to live with her mother for the first time, and oh how she’d hated that. Her mother had hated it, too, and Amy had grossly misbehaved, acting out in grief and teenage hatred. She’d sought attention, bad attention, in the form of inappropriate sex, using it as a way to manipulate boys. Then the game had been turned on her, and she hadn’t liked it much. It’d taken her far too long to realize she was destroying herself, but eventually she’d given up dangerous sex. Hell, she’d pretty much given up men, no matter how gorgeous and sexy they were.
    It’d been so long she felt like a virgin. At least an emotional virgin.
    And now she was going to die as one.
    A beam of light shined down on her from above. Not God. Not a fairy godmother. Just Matt, calling her name, concern clear in his voice.
    “Down here,” she said.
Where all the stupid girls end up on their broken butts.
“I’m coming.”
    “Don’t move.”
    “But—”
    “I mean it,