Little Miss Lovesick Read Online Free PDF Page B

stomach, will there be a storm?
    I looked back at the stick I held and took another swipe with the knife. Yes, concentration is good. The stick is looking fine. Just have a little knot here. Careful. I’ll cut it the other way.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matt lean over, grab another log, and toss it onto the fire. The muscles in his arms were amazing.
    I pressed too hard with the knife. It hit the knot and went flying along the wood toward my hand. Matt turned to me just as I nearly cut my thumb off.
    “Whoa, there!” He jumped toward me and grabbed both of my hands in his, holding the knife hand away and looking closely at the thumb I nearly lost. “You okay?”
    He’s quite a bit taller than me and he’d bent down to examine my hands for blood and missing digits. His face was very close to mine. I looked for the telltale ring around his irises that would prove he’s wearing blue contacts.
    “Fine. I’m fine.” I felt like I was stuttering. “There was a knot.” I held up the stick, but I was still looking in his eyes. No contacts. Real blue eyes. I felt his hands holding mine . Tha t was contact. I pulled away. After all, I didn’t know this guy. He could be a total lunatic.
    He’s not a lunatic, he works her e , said a Voice.
    Remembe r The Shining, said another.
    Patty knows him, so he must be safe.
    But I don’t feel safe. I feel like I’m being slowly electrocuted . That Voice certainly had the right of it.
    Matt let go of my hands and stood to my left, explaining to me how to safely sharpen the end of a stick with a knot in it. But there were too many other Voices and I couldn’t concentrate. I pulled the knife down the end of the stick and hit the knot again.
    “Hold on, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Before I knew it, his right arm was around my back and holding my right hand. His left hand covered mine and he moved the knife smoothly over the wood.
    I’d always wanted Dirk to teach me something in a romantic gesture like this. Like what you see in the movies. A man’s arms around the woman he cares for, showing her how to swing a golf club or swing a tennis racket or…
    Or sharpen a hot dog stick. Oh geez, he smells good. I closed my eyes for a moment. Like sunshine and spices and…and fire. Matt shifted his weight. I could feel his entire body behind me. His breath moved my hair, which tickled my ear.
    “You see?” he said. He moved the knife again, my hand still held in his.
    Should I say no so he’ll stay ? The Voice in my head seemed logical to me.
    I know he was just helping me sharpen a stick without cutting my hand off. I know that. But i t fel t like being held. And I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been held. I don’t know if I moved closer or he did. But as the knife continued to move up and down the stick, I felt his body wrap around mine. I closed my eyes again, feeling content for the first time in months.
    The knife stopped moving. I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at him. A bolt of electricity raced through my body. He must’ve felt it, too, because he pulled away suddenly with a surprised look in his eyes.
    He cleared his throat. “And, uh, that’s how you, uh, yeah…”
     

CHAPTER 4
    I’D LIKE to say that the next day, the first day of fishing lessons, I showed no ill effects from playing with fire the night before. But the alarm went off before the sun rose, and Em and I were talking until only a few hours earlier. One particular subject dominated the conversation, a subject that I was about to spend a good part of the day with again.
    What I really wanted to do was hide under my pillow and let the world take its course without me. As appealing as that sounded, I didn’t want anyone to think I had in any way been affected by — well, by anything or an y on e . Besides, Em was right. I’d spent too much time crying in bed the last few months. Today was the second day of my plan to heal myself if it killed me.
    I rolled out of bed,