Life as I Know It Read Online Free PDF Page B

soaked-to-the-skin girl who was stupid enough to be struck by a bolt of lightning five minutes after we’d met?
    My cheeks flushed again at the thought, and I buried my face in my hands with a groan of embarrassment.
    “Hi there.”
    I dropped my hands and looked up. He was standing smilingat me, as if he knew exactly what I’d been thinking. With calm, measured movements, he handed the flowers to me, pulled up a red vinyl hospital chair, and sat down next to the bed.
    “How are you feeling today?”
    “Better, thanks,” I croaked. “I’ve just been told I can go home later.” Clearing my throat, I tried to gain control of my vocal cords. “I owe you a big thank-you. The nurse told me you brought me in yesterday.”
    “I couldn’t very well leave you lying unconscious in the rain,” he said with a smile.
    The twinkle in his deep blue eyes was disconcerting. I tried to stop my lips from forming into an indignant pout and forced myself to remember my manners.
    “The nurse also said you were minding Frankie for me. I can’t thank you enough.”
    “It’s the least I could do,” he said, his smile widening broadly.
    “You’re laughing at me,” I accused him in a teasing voice. “I realize I probably don’t look much of a picture lying here in a hospital gown, with no makeup, but you could have the decency to at least pretend I’m not a complete mess.”
    “Are we having our first argument?” he asked with a grin.
    I stared at him, momentarily speechless, then burst out laughing. I remembered then how we’d laughed at each other the first moment we’d met.
    “I suppose you haven’t seen me looking anything other than a mess,” I managed to say when the laughter had died down.
    “You’re really not all that bad,” he said quietly. “With or without makeup, soaked to the skin and smoldering in a puddle, or looking palely interesting in a hospital gown.”
    I gazed up at him, wondering if he was joking, this knight inshining armor who had appeared in my life like a bolt from the blue. Despite the twinkle in his eyes I had the feeling he was being serious. I wanted to say that he was the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen, but I thought better of it, smiled instead, and asked him his name.
    “I’m Daniel Brennan,” he said formally, holding out his hand. “‘Dan’ to my friends.”
    “Hello Dan,” I replied. “I believe you already found out my name from Frankie’s tag.”
    “Yeah, you had no handbag, nothing in your pockets. Then I realized your dog had a name tag on her collar with your details on the back.”
    “A regular Sherlock Holmes,” I laughed. “Is Frankie okay?”
    “She went frantic when the lightning struck,” Dan said. “I thought she was going to bury you with mud before I could get to you.”
    “Poor Frankie.”
    “It wasn’t too great for any of us,” he said, his expression finally serious. “At first, I thought you were dead. Your breathing was so shallow I could hardly detect it, and the dogs were going wild. The rain just got worse and worse while I was trying to find a pulse, and you seemed to be getting so cold. In the end I just picked you up, threw you onto the backseat of my car wrapped in the dog blanket, chucked the dogs in the back, and drove like hell to the nearest hospital.”
    “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful for you.”
    “Do you know what I was thinking as I drove you here? Not what trouble I’d be in if I turned up with the dead body of an unknown female in my car, but how terrible it would be never to hear you laugh again.”
    I looked at him askance, and was struggling to think of a suitable reply when he scraped back the chair and sprang to his feet.
    “Hey, I’ll get you a vase or something for these, shall I?” He grabbed the flowers from my lap and took off down the ward with such speed I thought he was in danger of slipping on the shiny linoleum flooring.
    I lay back as a tremor ran through my body that had nothing to do