Let Me Love You Read Online Free PDF

owner?”
    He shrugged. “I figured you get enough wine at work.”
    She held his gaze for a second, and he knew he’d been right. Lucy was the type of woman who wanted something exciting, to make life an adventure filled with unexpected turns and dips in the journey. He knew exactly what that felt like—he used to live it firsthand.
    But that was before Alec died and Joey was left responsible for Alec’s daughter, Janice. She was about to turn sixteen and didn’t need as much support, but it’d been a long, tiring road since her parents’ deaths. Responsibility was a heavy burden to bear.
    “Do you have a bottle opener?” Lucy asked softly.
    He took her beer and, using his bottle-opener key chain, popped the top. He handed it over and she tipped it back, taking a hearty drink. He opened his own beer and drank, letting the silence stretch between them.
    They sat for a while, staring at the vineyard beneath them, the stars overhead, the trees reaching toward the sky. Surprisingly, the quiet between them wasn’t awkward. Joey hadn’t expected that. Sitting beside Lucy in the middle of nowhere felt natural. Oddly so.
    She cleared her throat. “Do you bring all your women out here?”
    “You say that as if I’ve had hordes.”
    She laughed so hard she spewed her drink. “Whores? I didn’t say any of them were whores!”
    “Hordes, Lucy! I’ve had hordes !”
    She crossed her arms over her belly and moaned when the laughter died out of her. “So you have had hordes. I was right. I knew it. Good-looking guy like you probably has women dripping all over him.”
    He stopped listening after “good-looking.” If she really thought that, she’d certainly never let on.
    “Did I just say the women were dripping all over you?” She smacked herself in the cheek. “That sounded gross, I’m sorry.” She held up her bottle and glared. “I think I’ve had one too many of you tonight.”
    “Truth be told, I’ve never brought anyone out here.” He set his beer beside him and lay back, resting his hands behind his head. “It’s quiet and no one knows about it. I’d like to keep it that way.”
    “I already knew about it,” she countered.
    “That’s why there was no harm in bringing you.”
    She settled beside him, though not a single part of her body touched his. She folded her hands over her stomach and stared at the sky. “When I do checks of the property lines, I come out this way. Well,” she corrected, looking over at him, “I don’t actually climb up here, but close. You’re right. It’s really peaceful.”
    “Look, the Seven Sisters are out.” He pointed to a cluster of seven twinkling stars off to their right. “After the storms, they get really clear. You can see all seven tonight.”
    A crazed impulse struck him: he wanted to take Lucy up into the skies and show her those stars up close. Strange, but he hadn’t had the urge to fly since the crash, let alone take anyone up with him.
    “Oh, there they are! One, two, three, four, five…six and seven are really faint.” She sighed. “Having seven sisters would be a pain in the ass. I’m glad I was an only child.”
    Her words said one thing, but the subtle dip in her tone whispered something different. She wished for a large family, or at least thought she did.
    “Big families can be difficult to manage,” he said, “but for the most part everyone pulls together when they need to.”
    When Alec died, Joey was thankful that his family was still around to help out. He might not have made it through that difficult time without them. His parents took care of the funeral expenses and Alec’s estate, and Joey took responsibility for Janice. Brody was too young to help out at the time, and Dane had offered to take Janice in for a while. In the end though, Janice went to live with her mother’s sister and Joey sent checks every month for support. He was thankful her aunt lived in Blue Lake, so he got to visit Janice whenever he liked.
    “Are