Carry Me Home Read Online Free PDF

want anybody who thinks he’s slumming because I didn’t go to college, that’s for sure. Anyway, men are all lying bastards, and I’m not divorced yet. So I’m not looking.”
    Except that they were going out to the Cowboy Bar, because, Rochelle had insisted, Zoe needed to “live a little.”
    “You’ve been here two months,” she’d said during their Thursday lunch date the day before, “and what have you done for fun?”
    “Uh . . . two-for-one margarita night with you at Senor Fred’s? I don’t have time for fun, and I don’t have clothes to go out dancing in anyway. I guess you don’t wear jeans.”
    “Not your jeans, anyway,” Rochelle said. “Honestly, where do you shop? Geeks R Us?”
    “I don’t like fashion,” Zoe said. “It confuses me.”
    “And see, you didn’t even have to tell me that. Look at it as doing me a favor. Showing Lake that I don’t miss his lazy, lying ass, that I’m out on the town and looking good on the Divorce Diet, eating all those green vegetables he hated, clear eyes and shiny hair and not a care in the world. Besides, I’ve been looking at flat engineer butts in khaki Dockers all week long. Give me a pair of faded Wranglers and a long, slow, sexy smile, a fiddle and a guitar playing soft and sweet, a cold beer and a hot man. That’s all it takes. Back home again, and it’s off to fantasyland. Got Bob in my bedside table all ready to satisfy me, and between him and my imagination?” She sighed. “That’s a hot-damn guaranteed Friday night good time. A whole lot more likely to get me there than Lake ever was.”
    “Well,” Zoe said, “if it’s for as good a cause as that, I guess I’m taking the plunge and going to a bar.”

    As they got closer, though, she started to lose her nerve.
    “You’re sure we won’t see anyone I know?” Zoe hustled across the street, tugging the inadequate silver-studded jean jacket more closely around her against the chill.
    “No, and who cares anyway?” Rochelle demanded, her long legs keeping up with ease. “You planning to strip naked? You’re allowed to go to a bar. It’s in the Constitution.”
    “It is not in the Constitution.”
    “Well, it ought to be. And quit fidgeting,” she ordered Zoe, who was trying to tug the dress down again. It stopped only a few inches above her knee, but that was a good couple inches higher than she wore her skirts—on the rare occasions when she wore skirts. “You look hot,” Rochelle said. “Think of it as research. Research is the deal, right? Exploring the local geography. Isn’t that the job?”
    “The geology. Which is rocks. This isn’t rocks.”
    “But it rocks,” Rochelle said helpfully. “You’ll see. It rocks solid.”
    “And anyway,” Zoe said, “the Cowboy Bar isn’t really the geography the tenure committee will have in mind.”
    “The tenure committee is never going to know. You aren’t doing anything wrong, for God’s sake. When they start the wet T-shirt contest, I promise to hold you back. Just in case the dean’s hanging out near the cigarette machine, hoping to hook up.” She sighed when Zoe stared at her. “Joke. Lighten up, will you? It’s not a Den of Sin. It’s a friggin’ bar. Dance, drink, flirt with cute guys, go home with me. Exactly like we said.”
    “I should have said,” Zoe told her, “one more thing. I’m not good at dancing. I mean, I can stand there and sort of move awkwardly.”
    “Ah,” Rochelle said. “Guy dancing.”
    Zoe laughed. “Yeah. That’s about it. I don’t know how to do this, I’m pretty sure.”
    “I’d say that’s the least of your worries,” Rochelle said. “Because I suspect we’ll find out that somebody’s just dying to teach you. I told you. You look hot. Trust me. I’m very good.”
    They were outside the bar now. A couple of guys in jeans, jackets, and boots cast an appreciative eye over the two of them on their own way in. The wooden door with its heavy cast-iron handle swung