Crazy in Love Read Online Free PDF

boot betrayed her, turning under her and sending her skittering to one side. She flailed both arms, but she knew it was no use. She felt herself falling, and closed her eyes as she prepared for the inevitable harsh clash between her ass and the cold stone floor.
    Then, suddenly, she felt herself being pulled upright. She opened her eyes to see Jake Tucker ’s face just inches from hers as he set her right, his hands warm and secure on her upper arms. She stared up at him, swallowing hard. She didn’t want to say, “Thank you,” because that would imply gratitude and debt and she was still kinda pissed off at him, but she didn’t know what else to say. Good job? Well done?
    You can let me go now?
    He released her suddenly, as though realizing himself that he’d held on to her a moment too long. He laughed self-consciously and motioned toward her boots.
    “ I never understood how you girls balanced on those things,” he said.
    “ Well,” Flynn said, “apparently not all of us do.”
    Their eyes met and there was another strange moment of … something. Flynn didn’t know what it was, but it made her dizzy and she didn’t like it. Maybe it was allergies? Was it possible to be allergic to a person?
    Well, if her presence here in Scheintown had taught her anything, it was that anything was possible.
    “Ready?” she asked.
    Jake Tucker nodded. “Never been readier.”
    He turned and headed out of the train station, carrying her suitcase, so she had no choice but to follow him. He was moving at an easy stride, but his long legs carried him much farther per step than hers would have even without the stilettos, and Flynn had to hustle to keep pace. She finally caught up to him as he was laying her suitcase in the back of a huge, weather-beaten red pickup truck, which a kinder person than she might refer to as “classic.” He opened the door for her and held out his hand to help her climb up, but she ignored it, managing to maneuver herself fairly well on her own, although there was a moment there where it was touch and go. Stupid boots. Once she was securely inside, he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
    They enjoyed a verbal cease-fire for a while. Flynn had nothing to say to him, and it was obvious he was only interested in badgering her, so she stared out the window as they drove in silence. The road from the train station into the village was windy and green, lined by farms and trees and low stone walls that wound lazily around the hilly terrain. She knew it was supposed to be charming, but it just creeped her out.
    “Nature,” she muttered, imagining all the bugs and rodents and slithery little things lurking in all that manure-fertilized green. Yugh.
    “ Hmmm?” Jake Tucker asked.
    “ Nothing,” she said.
    They passed through the village, and Flynn began to feel better. Scheintown wasn ’t exactly the hub of civilization, but there were sidewalks at least, and cute little boutique shops and charming Colonial streetlamps and a brick post office and an honest-to-goodness general store on the corner. There were still a fair number of trees, but they sprouted up from little stretches of ground between the sidewalk and the road, the way God intended. Flynn released a breath.
    She could do this.
    Maybe.
    Then the truck pulled up in front of the biggest, whitest, most unabashedly imposing building Flynn had ever seen, which she swore looked down on her with marked distaste. The tremendous wooden swinging sign out front had The Goodhouse Arms hand-painted in swirly black letters—which also, somehow, seemed to judge her. Below the big letters, similar but smaller ones spelled out Inn ~ Restaurant ~ Tavern . Just below that, in letters so small only Flynn could see them, was the simple line, You are in way over your head. Go home .
    “ Oh, God,” Flynn groaned.
    The walkway to the front door was paved with stones that had probably been there since Colonial days, and brilliant green bushes