Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF

awakened Emily at the very first opportunity, dragged her down to Club Joe like they were still on a college campus, still able to hang out in the student union, nursing hangovers and trying to make sense of disastrous dates from the night before. The least she could do now was explain herself. “All these years, I’ve had a crush on him. First, it was like he was some sort of superhero—Baseball Man to the rescue! When I was in high school, I actually wondered what it would be like to date him. And in college… You know how I felt about him then. But all those years, every time I’ve seen him, he’s looked at me the same way. He thinks of me like I’m a child. Like I’m still the ten-year-old brat coloring in maps of the United States for my social studies class. And losing it the way I did last night? He’s never, ever going to stop thinking of me as a little girl now. He’ll never, ever think of me as a grown woman.”
    Emily shook her head slowly. “Grown women cry, Anna. Trust me. I’m an expert on that.”
    Of course she was. Emily was a social worker. She’d already spent three years helping senior citizens arrange support systems so they could continue living in their beloved homes. She’d had ample opportunities to see grown women break down.
    Anna reached for her best friend’s hand. “Okay,” she conceded. “Maybe I’m making too much of this. But I still don’t understand how I lost it so completely.”
    “Yeah,” Emily said, squeezing Anna’s fingers. “It’s not like you were under any pressure or anything.”
    Anna laughed at the sarcastic tone. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you for support.” She drained the last of her syrupy water, and then she glanced at the cuckoo clock on the wall. “Oh! I have to get going. I’m meeting Gregory Small in fifteen minutes.”
    Emily sat back in her chair. “I’m so glad I could be of assistance.”
    “You were,” Anna reassured her. “I feel like I can face Zach now.”
    “Just don’t let him know about that fantasy date you planned so long ago. Where was it? An isolated mountain cabin, with rose petals strewn across your pillow…”
    “I never should have told you that! You pinky-swore never to mention it again!”
    Emily laughed. “Whoops.”
    Anna glanced at the clock again. “I’m sorry. I really have to—”
    “Go. Go. But you just might want to buy me a lemon blueberry scone, so that my mouth is too full for me to tell anyone else about those champagne flutes in your fantasy.… And the wild strawberries…And—”
    “Here!” Anna tossed a ten-dollar bill onto the table. “Get yourself a scone. Get two. Get a sandwich for lunch, too!” But she was laughing as she hurried out the door.
    * * *
    Zach blinked as he walked out of the hospital doors. The sunlight was a lot brighter than he’d expected. It was hard to believe there was a whole world out here—a family laughing beneath a giant bouquet of balloons, an old man clutching a bouquet of sweetheart roses, a young mother shifting her fussy infant from one shoulder to the other.  
    Of course, Cody Tucker’s family had just run a similar gauntlet, coming into the hospital. They’d arrived at the room about half an hour earlier. Zach had caught them up on what he knew—the doctors hadn’t delivered any news when they made rounds at seven, but they hoped to have more information by the middle of the afternoon. The kid’s mother had been especially grateful, thanking him over and over again, as if he’d actually done anything. The father had just shook his hand, looking away when a film of tears rose in bloodshot eyes that had probably not slept at all the night before.
    But watching them, husband and wife, staring at the worst disaster they could imagine for their child, Zach’s heart was warmed. They’d get through this. Get through it together.
    Just as he and Anna had done the night before.
    It was the damnedest thing. He and Anna had barely exchanged a