Love on Ice (Cannon City Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

was, would he even want to be with her anymore. She’d spent all her life with this fear and she could still hear her mother’s voice, No one will ever want you. If you think otherwise then you’re still the stupid kid you’ve always been. Her mother said things like that to her over and over until she was seventeen and Kate couldn’t get it to stop repeating in her head. It was like a recording that ran in circles. She held a lot of baggage in her head and didn’t want to unload it on him.
    They drove back to Canon City in silence. She looked out the side window and kept her hands clasped together. She gave Jay the directions to the neighborhood where she lived and he pulled up to the sidewalk outside of the house.
    “Thank you for lunch,” she said and started to open the door, but he reached across her and held it closed. He looked into her eyes.
    “I’m not sure what happened up on the bridge. For a second there I thought maybe I might have a chance with you. I would like to see you again. What time do you get off work tonight?”
    “It’s usually really late, midnight or one o’clock and I’m pretty tired after a shift.” Part of her wanted to meet him and the other part said no, bad idea, don’t go there . It made her want to scream at the voices to shut up and leave her alone for once. But that was her problem; she didn’t want to be alone anymore. She felt so confused.
    “That’s not too late. Why don’t you come over to the rink? I’ll get some good skates out and we’ll have a skate around. You said you do know how to skate, right?  It will be just us on the ice, so if you fall I’ll be the only one there to see you and I’ll be more than happy to give you a hand to get back up. What size do you wear?”
    “Yeah, I do know how and I have my own skates, but it’s not...I’m...” She took in a breath and let it out slowly and tried to calm down. “I just...” She looked at his brown eyes and saw something she didn’t recognize.
    She felt his hand on her cheek and warmth spread through her again. She felt safe and couldn’t decide if it was good or not.
    “Kate, I have no expectations. I’ll leave the front door open and if you want to skate, let yourself in and bring your skates. No one but you and I will be there. If you aren’t there by two o’clock, I’ll figure I struck out and that will be okay.”
    “I’ll think about it,” she whispered.
    He brushed his lips over hers and she could feel his warm breath on her face. She turned away and opened the door. She nearly killed herself when she got out and tripped over the sidewalk. She walked with quick steps to the side of the house and didn’t look back.

Chapter Six

    Jay worked behind the rental counter during the evening. He tried not to think about Kate, but found it difficult. He felt something haunted her and hoped he could find a way around it. He wanted to spend more time with her. Jay couldn’t say what it was he found attractive about the woman, but knew her eyes killed him. The bluish-purple mesmerized him and whenever she looked at him, he wanted to melt.
    He asked his security guard, Zack, who doubled as the Zamboni driver, to clean the ice after Jay closed the rink and then gave him the night off.
    If Kate didn’t show up Jay didn’t relish the idea of staying overnight at the rink, but he’d done it in the past and could do it again. He started to think that maybe a bottle of wine and some flowers would be nice and would maybe impress her a little, but scratched the idea in case she didn’t show up or drink wine.
    The time crawled slowly by and at eleven o’clock he heard the engine on the Zamboni fire up. He watched Zack steer the machine out onto the rink and begin the circle. Jay cleaned up the locker rooms and carried the garbage out to the dumpsters behind the building. He walked to the front of the rink carrying a newspaper and a cup of coffee. Zack finished and drove the huge machine out the gate at