Hooked Read Online Free PDF Page B

were somehow involved. Even then, something more civilized, like golf, was preferable to “thrashing around out in the boonies in a cold river, trying to hook some scaly old fish.”
    Four years had passed, and he still remembered every word of their last argument and breakup as if it had happened yesterday. Her dismissal of the things he held sacred had pierced him to the core. She was driven to succeed and her definition of success had no room in it for the things he believed in. He and Steph belonged to entirely different worlds.
    He’d gotten on with his life; slogged through that pain and the ensuing loneliness and then through fresh, unexpected sorrows. He’d managed to remain standing. He’d done okay, he thought, until that day a couple weeks ago when he looked up and found her in front of him at Greer Lodge. Throughout their breakfast together, he had read her body language, absorbing her, rememorizing every detail of the face he’d tried so hard to forget. Her big blue eyes, the luster of her auburn hair, the curve of her lips, the way her face lighted when she smiled…and that ringless finger on her left hand. Stephanie Steele was not the kind of woman you could marry without having to put a ring on that finger. So she was still single.
    But every time she’d met his eyes and glanced away, he’d sensed there was something she wasn’t telling him, something that had caused a change in her. There was a tentativeness about her now, a vulnerability he had never seen in her before. Something had derailed the confidence and single-mindedness that had fueled her success. Then, just as he’d thought they might be making progress, she’d jumped up and took off like a shot. Didn’t even shake his hand. He’d just stood there with his big dumb jaw hanging down, stunned that she couldn’t wait to get away from him.
    And now she’d waltzed into one of his stores to buy fishing equipment.
    What the hell was behind that?
    A half smile quirked up one side of his mouth. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten him as easily as he thought. Call him arrogant—or seriously deluded—but he was pretty damned sure that their meeting at Greer had something to do with her being in the store today, even if she didn’t remember he would be here for the clinic. What was going on with her? Had to be something pretty damned big to make her reconsider her opinion of fishing .
    * * *
    She hated fishing.
    That Saturday morning, Steph sat sipping coffee in her steel and granite kitchen, staring at the pile of fishing equipment, still bearing tags, stacked by the back door. What the hell had she been thinking? Did she even know anybody who went fishing? With the exception of her brother-in-law, Griff, who would try just about anything considered “manly,” including frying Thanksgiving turkeys in hot oil on the patio in the pouring rain . She had a quick, wicked visionof six-foot-three-inch Griff trying to wriggle into the Stephanie-size waders, and nearly blew coffee out her nose.
    She huffed. There was probably no pawning that stuff off on somebody as a Christmas gift. Griff was too big and the nephews were too young. Steph blew her nose and told herself she’d just take it back to the store. Finishing her coffee, she slipped off her stool and gathered up the equipment to carry to the car. Halfway out the door, she looked down at the shorts and T-shirt she’d slept in and made a face. She’d have to shower…
    Then the phone rang. She stood in the doorway to the garage with her arms full, trying to decide whether to let it go to voice mail. With a growl, she marched back inside, dropped one bag to free a hand, and picked up the phone.
    “Steph? Stephanie Steele?”
    The deep, resonant voice jarred her such that the rod under her arm slid and the handle hit the floor behind her.
    Finn . She looked at the fishing stuff in her arms with alarm, wondering if it were somehow responsible for this bizarre coincidence.
    “Speaking,” she said