He's the One Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. It wasn’t the complete truth.
     I didn’t have to plug him into the wall like I did my cell phone. He ran on Duracells.
    “I can’t believe you’d settle for a man like that,” Tristan snarled. He glowered at
     Flo when she brought his milk shake and silverware, and she retreated quickly, though
     she was grinning a little. “Don’t you have any pride?”
    The meat loaf turned to cardboard, and stuck in my throat. I took a gulp of cola to
     avert any necessity of the Heimlich maneuver. “Funny you should ask,” I replied quietly,
     “after what just happened at the Bronco.”
    At last, Tristan turned far enough to face me. He looked straight into my eyes. “You
     don’t love this Bob bozo,” he said bluntly. “If you did—”
    At my panicked look, he stopped. For all I knew, the people on both sides of us were
     listening to every word we said.
    Flo came back with his meat loaf, but he pulled some bills out of his Levi pocket
     and tossed them on the counter without even looking at her or the food. “Come on,”
     he said. Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the diner.
    I dug in my heels when we hit the sidewalk. “I wanted to finish my dinner,” I lied.
    “I’ll fix you an omelet at my place,” he said. There was a big, shiny SUV parked at
     the curb. He opened the passenger door and practically tossed me inside.
    “I am not going to your place,” I told him. But I didn’t try to escape, either. Not
     that I could have. He was blocking my way. “What we did at the Bronco was a lapse
     of judgment on my part. It’s over, and I’d just as soon forget it.”
    “We need to talk.”
    “Why? We had sex, it was good, and now it’s history. What is there to talk about?”
     Was this me talking? Miss Traditional Love and Marriage, hoping for a husband, two
     point two children and a dog?
    Tristan stepped back, slammed the car door, stormed around to the other side, and
     got in. His right temple was throbbing.
    “Maybe that’s all it means to you,” he bit out, jamming the rig into gear and screeching
     away from the curb, “but to me, it was more than sex. Way more.”
    My mouth dropped open. We were hovering on the brink of something I’d fantasized about,
     with and without Bob—or were we? Maybe I was out there alone, like always, and Tristan
     was leading me on. It didn’t take a software wizard to work out that he wanted more
     sex.
    “Like what?” I said.
    He turned onto a side street, and brought the SUV to a stop in front of a two-story
     house I used to dream about living in, as a kid. It was white, with green shutters
     on the windows and a fenced, grassy yard. There were flower beds, too, all blooming.
    And the sign swinging by the gate read TRISTAN MCCULLOUGH, ATTORNEY AT LAW .
    “Never mind like what,” he snapped, while I was still getting over the fact that he
     was a lawyer. “Things didn’t end right between us, and I’m not letting this go till
     we talk it out!”
    I was a beat or two behind. Last I’d heard, Tristan was planning to major in Agriculture
     and Animal Husbandry. Instead, he’d gone on to law school.
    Sheesh. A lot can happen in ten years.
    I’d been into survival. He’d been making something of his life.
    The contrast hurt, big-time. I sat there in the passenger seat like a lump, staring
     at the sign.
    Tristan shut off the engine, thrust out a sigh, and turned to face me squarely. His
     blue eyes were narrow, and shooting little golden sparks.
    “Impressed?” he asked bitterly.
    I flinched. “What?”
    “Isn’t that why you left Parable? Because you thought I’d turn out to be a saddle
     bum, following the rodeo?”
    “I thought,” I said evenly, “that you would work on the ranch. Family tradition, and
     all that.”
    He sighed again, rubbed his chin with one hand. He’d showered and changed clothes
     between the Bronco and the diner, but he hadn’t shaved. An attractive stubble was
     beginning to gleam on the lower part