Chosen Read Online Free PDF

Green Door and blinked in the bright sunlight.
    “I keep thinking I need to shop for a hat, but I never have time,” Alexana said.
    Ridge looked at her, appreciating her first real conversational comment. “I know just the place,” he announced, an idea taking root.
    “What?” she turned toward him.
    “Come on,” he said, motioning left with a nod, “we can take care of your hat needs. I passed a shop on the way to meet you.”
    “No, Ridge, I was just commenting … I wasn’t asking … Ridge!”The man was leaving without her. Sighing, she followed, stretching her long legs to catch up with him. Just outside the Old City walls was a line of high-end shops that catered to Jerusalem’s wealthy.
    She reached out to grab his arm as they passed a furrier shop. “Ridge, I really don’t want a hat.”
    “What? Are you kidding? You’d look great in a hat. Come on. I’m buying. You bought the drinks this morning. I’m buying you a hat.”
    “Ridge, I—”
    “Enough. We got off on the wrong foot, Dr. Roarke. Let me buy you a hat as a peace offering.”
    His face was so earnest that Alexana faltered. Suddenly he was like a little boy on a mission. She set her lips grimly as she entered the store behind him, steeling herself for the inevitable. She had five Indiana Jones hats at home, gifts from past suitors. Why had men always wanted to put her under a masculine cap? She was an archaeologist, but still a woman.
    But as Alexana looked around the hat shop, past the leather and felt fedoras, she discovered that Ridge had headed straight to a more feminine section of the store. He held a beautifully crafted, tightly woven linen hat with a broad white ribbon around its crown. He looked at her, then back to the hat again. “I saw one like it in the window,” he said proudly.
    A shiver ran down her spine. Had he picked it for her?
    “It’s perfect, don’t you think?” he asked, placing it on her head before she could say a word. “I looked around, and it was as if it had your name on it.”
    She glanced at him quickly to make sure he wasn’t making her the target of some joke, then blushed as he looked at her in open admiration. Alexana searched for words as she looked from him to amirror, becoming even more tongue-tied as she realized that she did not know what to say. The brim of the hat rolled up in front and was slightly oval, making it longer in back, reminiscent of styles popular in the 1920s.
    “It’s beautiful, Ridge … but I … I know it must be expensive …”
    “Nonsense. I’m buying it for you. Not as an expense that I’ll submit at the office. As a gift from me to you.” He warmed to the idea as he recognized just how much she wanted the hat. “No arguments. If you don’t accept it, I’m going to buy it anyway and toss it on my bureau at home to remember the day by.”
    “You’d spend this much on a memento?”
    “I’d rather see the memento on a certain tour guide.”
    Alexana looked back in the mirror and felt her heart soften toward the man. He might be a cocky, overly self-assured womanizer, but no man had ever made her feel so feminine by such a simple gesture. She ventured a shy look of gratitude as he paid for the hat and they left the store.
    “Ridge, that was very generous. I want to reciprocate in some way …”
    “No need, Doctor. I like the fact that you owe me.”
    Her heart pounded at the thought. Alexana Roarke rarely let herself be indebted to anyone. “Listen, I could pay for the hat myself …”
    Ridge grinned at her smugly. “But it wouldn’t be the same, would it?”
    She wanted to deny it, but it was true. The simple beauty of the moment was that Ridge, a near stranger, had picked the one hat, out of a sea of options, that she would have chosen for herself.
    “Yes, well, I … I could at least buy you dinner tonight at the Seven Arches.”
    “You’re asking me out to dinner? Dr. Roarke, I think we had better take this slow,” Ridge said,