Buried (Hiding From Love #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

matter.”
    She turns her back to me, takes a couple of steps away, then swings back around, and before I know it, she’s right there in front of me, her palm cradling my cheek.
    “I have to hang on to you. I can’t bear for you to disappear again. I won’t let you. You don’t have to like it. You don’t even have to agree to it. It’s just how it has to be. I’m going to find you, Juan. And then I’m going to bring you home.”
    She looks into my eyes for another moment before she turns on her heel and walks away.
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    1 Vato = Dude
    2 Ese = slang term similar to dude, but less polite
    3 Mi corazon = my heart
    4 Tu familia = your family
    5 Madre de Dios = mother of God
    6 Estas loca. No sabes nada de mi vida = You’re crazy. You know nothing about my life.

I let the phone ring a fifth time. “Please pick up, David,” I whisper.
    “Beth?” His voice on the other end is short. I’ve apparently caught him at a bad time.
    “Yeah, hey,” I answer as I lean back against the kitchen chair. “I really need you, David.”
    I can hear him moving around, then a door shutting. “Okay, what’s up?”
    “It’s about Juan.”
    “Have you seen him again?”
    “Yeah, just a bit ago.”
    “And what happened?” He sounds concerned, but I suspect it’s not for the right reasons.
    “He pretty much told me to mind my own business. And the rest of the family too.”
    I sigh as I stand and open the refrigerator, absentmindedly taking out a Monster and popping the top. I take a sip before continuing, the cold bubbles stinging as they roll down my throat.
    “He thinks that he’s a lost cause and we should all go on about our business.”
    I can hear my brother breathing on the other end. “Well,” he says glumly, “that’s what we’ve been doing for seven years. Going on about our business.”
    “David, no. Don’t start with the guilt again. You did everything you possibly could to find him. You and Dad spent weeks combing the streets looking for him after he ran away. He didn’t want to be found.”
    “And now he doesn’t want to be helped. What’s the difference, Beth?”
    I take another gulp of what tastes like a bubbly SweeTart, wondering when I became so inured to both the caffeine and the flavor.
    “The difference is, I know where he’s at, and he can’t get away for another seventy-five days or something. Now’s our chance, David. Once he leaves the halfway house, he’ll go off and do something stupid or noble again and we won’t be able to find him. We have a little over two months to convince him that he deserves a real life, you know?”
    I listen to the silence from the other end of the phone, picturing the way his forehead is probably wrinkling in concentration. The way he scrapes at his thumb with his forefinger while he weighs the options. Finally, he answers.
    “You always did have a thing for him, didn’t you?”
    “What?” My heart skips a beat. “He’s like a brother to me, and he’s a good guy. That’s all.” I cross my fingers behind my back, hoping somehow it will ward off the bad karma I’ve just invited by lying.
    David snorts over the phone. “Yeah, right. I’ll tell you something, little girl. If I come up there and decide that he’s not our Juan anymore, you’ll be finding someone else to save. I won’t have you spending time with anyone who’s dangerous, Beth. I don’t care if he was like a brother to me or if you’ve laid all your schoolgirl fantasies on him. Your safety matters more than any of that crap.”
    I bite down on my tongue to prevent the litany of Spanish insults straining to emerge. The men in my family are such overbearing asses sometimes that it makes me want to hurt them…with my fists. But I need David’s help with this. I can’t afford to piss him off. So I keep quiet for a minute until my temper is under control.
    “Okay. I hear you. Just please…come up this weekend and we’ll go see him together. Talk to him, find out whatever you