Enticing Emma Read Online Free PDF

more like her friend. Callie dated a variety of men, keeping it all very casual and enjoying life with a sense of vigor that Emma admired.
    She, on the other hand, rarely dated at all and took life very seriously. Look what had happened the last time she’d tried dating. She still couldn’t get Tucker out of her head.
    She sometimes daydreamed that things were different, but then her common sense would reassert itself and remind her why she didn’t trust strong, good-looking men. Her father had been such a man and she and her mother had paid the price. James Howard had swept Emma’s mother, Sarah, off her feet when she was just eighteen. Emma had followed only five months after they were wed. Any idiot could do the math.
    Her father had flitted in and out of her life for the first nine years before finally disappearing for good one day. She remembered his charming ways, his easily broken promises and her mother’s tears. Emma refused to dwell on her own tears and broken heart.
    Sarah Howard had lived on the false hope that her husband would one day return, right up until she’d died of cancer four years ago. Emma hadn’t even known how to contact her father to let him know. As far as she knew, her parents had never divorced.
    If her childhood had taught her one thing, it was not to depend on anyone, especially not a handsome, charming man. Emma refused to be weak like her mother. She’d worked her way through school and opened a small art supply store, Artworks. Once she’d started making money, she’d saved and planned, finally achieving the goal of expanding her business to include a gallery as well. With her two art-related businesses housed in a small building on Summersville’s busiest street, she was living her dream.
    She’d picked the community of Summersville to settle in after her mother’s death, deciding it was the perfect place to open her business. It was a nice-sized town without being too big, a pleasant community where people said hello to each other on the street, but large enough to support her business ventures. It also got a good share of the tourist trade from early spring until the leaves finally fell in late fall. All in all, she was pleased with her decision to move here.
    She’d made a couple of very close friends, but her two businesses occupied most of her time. Her apartment, which was in an older building, was close enough for her to walk to work. She was thirty-one years old and she’d built a good solid life. If sometimes she felt restless and discontent, she ruthlessly squashed those feelings.
    She’d dated her share of men over the years, but they were safe men, serious and plain-looking. Men occupied with climbing the corporate ladder or busy building their own businesses. The kind of men who never tempted her to question the decision she’d made to remain single.
    She’d made a mistake with Tucker and had regretted it ever since. From the moment he’d moved into her apartment building, he’d made it abundantly clear that he wanted to get to know her better. Much better. She’d shied away from him, practically overpowered by his raw masculinity.
    And yet, somehow he’d slipped past her defenses, charming her with his old-fashioned manners and his sense of humor. Even though he was so gorgeous that just looking at him was enough to make her drool, she hadn’t felt threatened by him. It was as if he’d kept all his masculine energy and testosterone harnessed while he was around her. In a moment of weakness, she’d accepted an invitation to go out to dinner with him.
    One date had led to two and then to a third. They’d been totally normal dates, dinner one evening and a movie the next. Conversation had flowed easily between them as they discovered they had friends in common. It surprised her how easy she found it to make conversation with him. They talked about everything from politics to community matters to sports. Tucker was intelligent and made interesting