Love a Little Sideways Read Online Free PDF Page A

down and lock her in the truck with him for a while, but he wasn’t going to give her a ticket. Not only had she suffered enough vehicular trouble lately, but he didn’t want his tags on a violation tag.
    Liz started to open the door, but he shoved it closed. “Stay in the vehicle. You know that.”
    He bent down to look in the window and got sucker punched by her smile. It was the Kowalski get-out-of-trouble smile and God knew he’d seen Mitch and his brothers use it on women so often he usually just rolled his eyes.
    But with her head tilted a little sideways and her blue eyes crinkling, Liz’s smile did something to his insides and he straightened again. Folding his arms over his chest as if they were armor, he glared down at her.
    “I’m really sorry, Drew,” she said in a soft voice.
    “What is it with you Kowalskis? When I’m in uniform and you’re in trouble, it’s Chief Miller.”
    “Just how much trouble am I in?”
    Not as much as he was, if she didn’t stop looking at him like that. “You’re speeding. In the police chief’s car.”
    She held up her hand, holding her thumb and index finger a half inch apart. “Just a little.”
    “Isn’t it bad enough there’s a picture on Facebook of my car in your driveway at midnight? What’s next? A picture of my car laying rubber down the main street?”
    “I didn’t lay rubber down...wait. What picture on Facebook?”
    “You haven’t talked to Mitch?”
    That certainly wiped the charming smile off her face. “Not yet. Why is there a picture of my house on Facebook?”
    “And my car. He stopped by my office this morning. Wanted to know why my car was in your driveway at midnight with no lights on in the house.”
    “Oh. Well, at least there’s an easy explanation for that, and not many people know I’ve moved in there. Yet.”
    He felt his jaw clench. “He says he won’t be too fazed by gossip because he knows I’d cut off my own balls before I’d put a hand on you.”
    He watched her expression as the words sunk in, until she turned to stare out the windshield and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Did he say that?”
    “He did.”
    She took a deep breath and, since the angle he was looking down at her offered a window-framed view of her breasts, he forced himself to look at the trees over the top of the car. Having sexy thoughts about her while discussing Mitch’s reaction to the idea of them having sex didn’t sit well with him. Neither did lying to his best friend, even if only by omission, but there was no point in putting a strain on relationships for what had been nothing more than a quick rebound fling.
    As happy as he was for Mitch and Paige, their wedding had been hard on him. Divorce sucked extra hard when you were celebrating a marriage, and he felt lonely and cold inside. Then he’d seen Liz and turned hot in an instant. She was so vibrant and fun, dancing and laughing with her family but, behind the smile, he could see that she was lonely, too.
    They’d circled around each other during the reception. Glances. Smiles. Touches. Then they’d run into each other in the house and found themselves alone. He still wasn’t sure who moved first, but the kiss made him feel like that bird that rose out of the ashes and they went upstairs.
    Liz was just as vibrant and fun in the bedroom, and Drew wouldn’t want to ever confess how many times he’d thought about that day since. But he’d barely caught his breath before Liz heard her brother Ryan yelling her name and ran off like a teen who’d spotted her parents’ headlights in a window. There had been cake cutting and more celebrating and then he’d been doing the designated-driver thing, so he hadn’t gotten to see her again before she went back to New Mexico.
    Maybe if she’d stayed, it would have amounted to something and they would have told Mitch they were a couple. Instead, the best sex of his life was an awkward secret.
    “It’s not a big deal,” Liz said,