Let Me Hold You Read Online Free PDF Page B

Well, mine needs fixing,” he said.
    “Is it here?”
    Without answering he put one of his large hands around her upper arm and led her through the showroom, taking her out the main entrance and heading to the service bay doors.
    A strange sensation flooded her body as the warmth of his hand encircled the skin left bare by her short-sleeved polo shirt. It was like heat lightning ziggety-zagging all over her body, like a pinball pinging off every sensitive nerve ending she possessed. Ping, left nipple, zing, right nipple, ding-ding-ding, Miss Alana! She had to bite her lower lip to keep from giggling at the random thoughts she was having. She and her sisters always referred to their lady parts as Miss; Miss Alana, Miss Alexis and so on.
    Another silly thought occurred to her and she almost choked. Pinball or Xbox? She’d have to spring that on Tollie one day, that is if she could still think straight after this. She was breathless when they reached the doors but she still gasped at what was waiting for her.
    “Oh, Roland, I’m so, so sorry about this,” she said softly.
    “This” was Roland’s pride and joy, his much-loved and very carefully maintained 1967 Thunderbird that had belonged to his grandfather. Roland had inherited the car from the older man and he loved it as much as, if not more than, the man who’d purchased it brand-new so many years ago. It had looked showroom-new the last time Alana had seen it; now it was all but destroyed.
    The front end of the car was smashed in, along with the driver’s side of the car. The glistening black finish was no more, the windshield and driver’s-side window were crushed into thousands of crystal shards and the front and rear tires splayed out, a clear sign that the frame had been warped and buckled. Her heart was heavy as she surveyed the damage. She could only imagine how Roland was feeling. Without thinking about what she was doing, she put her arms around his waist and gave him an awkward hug.
    “Were you driving when this happened? No one told me you were in an accident,” she said as her large eyes locked with his.
    His bad mood was already apparent but her soft words seemed to trip his anger trigger again. “Why would anybody tell you when it’s obvious that you have no interest in me? That would be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?”
    Wow, he was really furious. Alana didn’t react to his harsh words, but he showed a slight regret for his remark as he answered her question. “No, I wasn’t driving when it happened. It was stolen. It was being stored in my dad’s garage in Chicago and somebody decided that they needed it,” he told her in a much calmer voice. “To make a stupid story short, the little jerk was racing it and ended up in a three-way collision. He barely escaped with his life and if he’d been driving anything else he’d have ended up a bloody smear on the road. But all that notwithstanding, I want to know if you can fix it.”
    “Of course I can,” she said at once. “I have the best crew in the south and we can get it back to its original condition in no time at all. But how did it get here? It sounds as though the accident was in Chicago.”
    Roland was walking around the wreckage, looking lost. He was obviously not listening to a word that Alana was saying. “The insurance company totaled it out. The investigator said it was hopeless. Are you sure you can do something with it?”
    He looked so forlorn that Alana went to his side and took his hand, squeezing it to get his attention. “Roland, dear heart, I promise you that this car can and will be restored to all its former beauty. It’ll take a few weeks, but I won’t let you down, truly I won’t.”
    She finally penetrated his fog and he gave her a weak smile. “You probably think I’m a big fool for acting like this, but this was my granddad’s ride. I love it almost as much as I loved him. That’s why I had it hauled down here, because I saw what you did to Lucas’s