Love in Xxchange: Miles to Go Read Online Free PDF Page A

of cold sweet tea had him jerking his gloves off and tucking them away. “Appreciate it, Annabelle.”
    “You’re welcome,” she replied, handing him a thermos. Annabelle flicked him a
    worried look. “So Chance got a phone call, like I said, and he and Rory left almost as soon as the phone hit the cradle. They both looked pretty upset.”
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    Max uncapped the thermos and took several refreshing swallows of the cool, sweet liquid. Nothing tasted so good as chilled sweet tea when he was thirsty. He thumbed the excess off his lips and tipped his chin at Annabelle.
    “They didn’t say who called or where they were going?” That wasn’t like either man—
    normally if something came up, they called Max on the two-way and told him about it. The fact that they hadn’t could only mean that whatever had happened was bad enough to have rattled them something fierce.
    “Nooooo, not exactly.” Annabelle looked at him, just a darting glance as her cheeks pinked. “I kind of looked at the caller ID because…because they just don’t act like that, right?”
    Max nodded, trying to be patient. He had a nervous itch creeping over his spine—that never signalled anything good.
    “It was from a St. Joseph’s hospital, with a 210 area code. That’s San Antonio, isn’t it?”
    Sweat dripped into his eyes as he scrunched his eyebrows. Damn, that burns! “Yeah it is, but who—” Max’s stomach plummeted. There was only one person both men knew well
    enough to worry about. The same man who had caused Max more than a little internal turmoil. Annabelle’s next words had that turmoil increasing exponentially, and his knees turning to jelly.
    Annabelle’s voice was soft as she said, “All I heard Chance tell Rory was that Bo was in pretty bad shape.” She looked at him curiously. “Who’s Bo?”
    Max’s heart kicked hard in his chest as Annabelle’s question chilled him more than the tea ever could have. He felt cold clean through to his bones, and had to tense every muscle in his body to stop the shudder that tried to tear through him. “He’s a friend,” Max murmured, his voice oddly calm compared to the chaotic emotions trying to burst past the rigid control he always bound them with. He wasn’t prone to hysterics and wasn’t going to start being so now. “A good friend.”
    “How good?”
    Something in Annabelle’s voice set off a tingle of alarm in Max as he looked at her. Her eyes were narrowed and he thought if ever anyone could peer into someone else’s thoughts, it’d have been Annabelle with that intense blue gaze. One of her blonde eyebrows arched and it dawned on Max what she was really asking.
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    “Not that kind of friend.” How he kept from snapping it out was beyond him. Between being embarrassed at her even asking and his worry for Bo, Max was only tenuously keeping his temper in check. “He’s someone Chance used to know…like that,” he explained. “I met him a while back when he showed up here thinking to, you know, visit with Chance.”
    Annabelle snorted and rolled her eyes. “And Rory didn’t kill him?” Then she frowned and glared at him as if Max had done something offensive. “Then why did they go rushing out of the house like he was, well, not like he was some horn dog who came sniffing around for a fuck.”
    The tip of Max’s ears burned as anger made his temples throb. He had to remind
    himself that Annabelle didn’t know Bo, and even so, she wasn’t entirely wrong about what he’d tried to do. But still! “You haven’t met him. He ain’t like that now, least not with Chance and Rory—or me,” he added before she could ask.
    “Huh.” Annabelle didn’t look particularly mollified though she wasn’t glaring, exactly.
    “So he’s just everybody’s friend.” The way she said it sounded kind of snarky, but Max wasn’t going to call her on it.
    “Yeah.” Max turned and strode to the truck