Falling Into You Read Online Free PDF Page A

new kitchen. Wiping a sheen
of sweat from her forehead, she stood back, lips pursed, and swept a look
around the sunlit room. It was smaller than the kitchen in the condo she’d just
moved from, and she wasn’t too crazy about the beige linoleum floor, but at
least the room had an island and modern oak cabinets. The rest of the
two-bedroom apartment wasn’t bad either, and at $1,500 a month, it was just
what she needed at this point in her life.
    Not that she wouldn’t miss her condo in
Annapolis with its lakefront views and manicured lawns. But when she’d made the
decision to take a year off from teaching in order to focus on completing her
dissertation, she knew she would have to make some drastic lifestyle changes.
And if all went according to plan, by the same time next year, she’d be
applying for a tenure-track faculty position at Johns Hopkins University, where
she’d dreamed of teaching for as long as she could remember.
    As Rebecca reached for a box-cutter,
twenty-two-year-old Rasheed Edmonds entered the apartment carrying a large
cardboard box labeled TEXTBOOKS . He glanced over at her through the alcove
in the kitchen.
    “Where do you want this?” he asked.
    “Anywhere in the living room is fine.” Rebecca
smiled as her younger brother lowered the heavy box to the floor and made an
exaggerated show of slumping over it in a fit of exhaustion.
    “That was the last box,” he panted. “We’re
done. Finished. Finito .”
    “Are you sure?” Rebecca teased, walking out of
the kitchen. “Did you check every crack and crevice of the U-Haul to make sure
you guys got everything?”
    Rasheed lifted his head to give his
approaching sister a wry look. “Take my word for it. The truck’s empty. Chris
is locking it up right now.”
    Rebecca leaned down and planted a big, wet
kiss on his forehead, grinning as he groaned in protest. “Thank you, baby boy.”
    At six foot tall, Rasheed Edmonds wasn’t
quite a “baby” anymore. The chubby face he’d sported most of his life had been
replaced by lean, masculine features when Rebecca wasn’t looking. Four years of
working out in the campus weight center with his college buddies had given him
a toned, muscular physique that drew plenty of admiring female gazes wherever
he went. His caramel skin was still sun-toasted from his summer trip to Costa
Rica, which had been his college graduation gift from Rebecca.
    Eight years apart, the siblings had always
been close, a bond that had been further strengthened by the untimely death of
their parents.
    Rebecca had just started on her master’s
degree when tragedy struck, claiming the lives of Frederick and Valeria Edmonds
in a boating accident while they were vacationing overseas. Rebecca had
immediately dropped out of school and taken on a part-time job, in addition to
her full-time one, in order to help raise her orphaned teenage brother. At her
insistence, money from the insurance settlement was set aside for Rasheed’s
college education—no exceptions. Although they’d received occasional
assistance from distant relatives, for the most part, Rebecca and Rasheed had
been on their own. Money had been tight, but somehow they’d survived, learning
to depend on each other through the good and bad times.
    And in those dark, depressing years while
they’d both struggled to cope with the devastating loss of their parents, there
had been more bad times than good.   
    When Rasheed graduated from college with
honors, Rebecca was so proud of him that she’d wept like a fool at the
ceremony. Out of the many job offers he’d received, he had accepted a position
with a top executive firm in D.C. and was now thinking about pursuing an MBA.
    Lost in her reverie, Rebecca didn’t notice
that her brother had risen from the floor and was walking through the
apartment, carefully inspecting each room.    
    “Are you sure you had to move out of your
apartment in Annapolis?” he asked as he returned to the living room,