Forever My Love: A Contenporary Romance (The Armstrongs Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

utterly devastated. She hadn’t given him a reason. She hadn’t even appeared to think about it for very long. No, she'd rejected him without blinking an eye and walked away. Taking his heart and tossing it upon the ground to break in a million pieces.
    After that day, they'd stopped talking to each other. He hadn’t even been able to look at her when they passed in the hallways of the school. And then, out of nowhere a few weeks later, she'd moved away. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since then.
    He'd been heartbroken for months. Thinking back on it now, he realized that he had been more than just a crushed teenager. If he was honest, he’d been trying to get over her for years. His entire outlook on relationships had changed after her refusal. He’d made an unconscious decision, at first, to play the field. Non-serious relationships never involved one’s emotions, therefore there was no possibility of getting your heart broke.
    He dated women who were only looking for a good time. Women who knew how the one night stand game was played and were okay with it. Sleeping with the same woman twice was   a rare occurrence, and he almost always woke up alone. It was a lonely life, but he'd himself convinced that he would rather wake up lonely, than go through another broken heart!
    Attempting to raise the hammer once more, he was struck by how tired his arms were. Well this sure didn’t help me forget about her! Tossing his tools to the table, he turned off the torch and started shutting down his shop. Work hadn’t helped erase her from his thoughts, so he would have to try something else.
    A glance at the clock showed it was nearing quitting time for most of the city. Grabbing his things, he locked the building up and headed to the local bar where he was sure to find a friend or two letting the stress of the day slip away in a bottle of beer.
    At his go-to bar McGee’s he spotted a few of the guys he played basketball with at a corner hi-top. He nodded to the waitress, giving her the signal to bring him his usual dark beer, and joined his buddies.
    “Hey, Ryan. How’s it going?” someone at the table asked.
    Ryan shrugged, hooking an empty bar stool with his foot and then taking a seat, “Good.”
    “We don’t usually see you in here this early. You in-between projects?” one of the men asked.
    “No, I just needed a distraction.” The waitress brought his beer and he took a long pull on it and tried to follow the conversation going on around him. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Kendra.
    Now that he’d seen her again, he realized what had been holding him back in his relationships the last ten years. He’d been waiting for her! Kendra was the one and only woman he wanted. The woman he wouldn’t mind waking up to when morning came. The woman he wouldn’t mind spending time with day after day…
    Not good, Ryan. Not good at all. Remember what happened last time? What makes you think this time will be any different?   Ryan shook his head at his own thoughts. He didn’t want to end up with a broken heart again. He really didn’t! He needed to stop thinking about Kendra!

Chapter 5
     
    Two days later, Kendra was tired from constantly thinking about Ryan. It seemed that how he’d hurt her years earlier was all she’d been able to think about since she’d left his workshop. She’d spent ten years trying to forget him, and yet less than two hours in his presence and he consumed her every thought! Why hadn’t she been able to put him out of her mind?
    She paused in her work and her mind immediately drifted back to high school. They'd been so in love. He'd made her feel special, and for the first time in her young life, she had felt pretty. Ryan had given her that and she'd fallen in love with him. He appeared to be in  love with her too; at least she had thought so. 
    When they'd shared their first kiss, she'd been walking around on cloud nine, dreaming of the future. A bright future full of love