Cool Shade Read Online Free PDF

properties."
    He rubbed a thumb across the soft skin of her inner arm.
    Tan against white. Firm against soft.
    Why hadn't she taken advantage of the YWCA weight room? Why hadn't she ever started jogging?
    "It should be cleaned."
    She stared at her arm. At his hand on her arm. Could he see the pulse beating madly in her wrist?
    "You're shaking."
    He was right. And it wasn't just the arm he was holding. She was shaking all over.
    He looked from her to the dog, which she'd totally forgotten. "Don't you feel bad, Murphy?"
    Murphy wagged his tail.
    "No wonder we hardly ever have company."
    The dog. He thought she was shaking because of the dog.
    Ah, yes. That was it. Who wouldn't be shaking?
    "Did you know your name is Eddie, and your dog's name is Murphy? Get it? Eddie Murphy."
    That lazy smile. "It's been mentioned."
    About a hundred times, were the unspoken words he was too much of a gentleman to utter.
    "Come up to the house and I'll clean that cut for you."
    The house? He actually lived there?
    He led her back the way she'd come. Dreamlike, she followed. On the porch, he took her by both hands and gently but firmly pushed her down in the wicker rocking chair. And this time the house didn't look ramshackle, it looked charming. It no longer looked abandoned and run-down; it looked more a product of carefully cultivated neglect.
    The screen door slammed behind him. She heard his booted footfall moving this way and that.
    With some distance between them, her head began to clear. She briefly toyed with the idea of running, but the dog—Murphy—was lying on the porch, muzzle against his paws, watching her with deceptively sleepy eyes.
    When Eddie returned, he was carrying a bottle of peroxide and a hand towel. He made her hold out her arm.
    "This'll sting."
    He poured the peroxide over the cut.
    She watched it bubble. Watched it run down the sides of her arm. Watched it drip on her bare leg.
    Normally quite a screamer, she didn't feel a thing.
    He capped the bottle and set it aside, then dabbed around the cut with the towel.
    "You have the whitest skin I've ever seen."
    "I… I, uh don't get out much."
    “You haven't been sick, have you?"
    Here she meets this really great-looking guy, and she looks so bad he thinks she's been sick. How embarrassing.
    "No. Actually, I work nights. I mean, I used to work nights. So I slept all day."
    She was talking. She knew she was talking, yet she was hardly aware of what she said. Was she making any sense at all?
    She couldn't take her eyes off the man crouched in front of her.
    He was beautiful.
    It wasn't like her to fall for a pretty face. Good-looking guys had never appealed to her. They were always too hung up on themselves. But it wasn't just his looks, she tried to tell herself. It went beyond physical. This was something that seemed to emanate from him. Something he carried with him. Inside him.
    He seems so together.
    And Maddie had never been together in her life.
    She stared at the leaves in his hair. Her fingers twitched. She started to reach up, stopped, started… Finally, she lifted her hand and touched a shiny, dark strand.
    Soft. Incredibly soft.
    She couldn't believe she was being so bold, but the whole encounter had a dreamlike quality that made it incredibly easy for her to touch him.
    His head came up. His eyes stared into hers.
    "You have a leaf…" she heard herself saying.
    She worked it loose, and when she was done, she showed it to him, just so he would know, just so he wouldn't get the wrong idea and think she was just looking for an excuse to touch him. Then she went to work on the next one.
    "There," she said, finally finished. When she looked into his eyes again, her breath caught. There was such electricity around them, between them. Was it all her? Did he feel it, too?
    This is insane.
    This is wonderful.
    Insanely wonderful .
    For the first time in years, she felt a sense of belonging, of amazing lightness.
    She didn't know how long she sat there mooning over