Love Today Read Online Free PDF Page B

wait and I’ll bring it out to you?”
    Oh gosh, what was going to happen if we were alone in a dark parking lot ? I was just about to offer to come back inside, where it was busier with cleanup and more people, but I saw him step out of the hotel. I guess I got out of the car, and that’s when he paused because he saw me. He did have something in his hand when he approached—it was a gift of some sort—and he held it out for me when he was close enough.
    “Sorry. I had it and then you were just…gone.”
    “Thank you,” I replied.
    I looked it over for a few seconds so I didn’t have to look directly at him , but he stepped closer to me anyways and gen tly took my face in his hands. It caught me off guard, and m y heart was going to thump right out of my chest when he leaned down to kiss me, but I knew that I wanted him to and I received it willingly.
    I liked how he kissed me—it was soft and gentle, and it seemed very sincere. I found myself wanting more, so that was a good sign. Or maybe it was a bad sign, depending on how you look at it. I enjoyed the attraction we had to each other, but was I really going to let it be anything more than friends?
    When the kiss naturally came to an end, we both just looked at each other. Zack kind of smiled and said, “Wow, no wonder I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Somehow I knew it was going to be that good .”
    It made me smile, and for some reason—after the kiss and his light humor—I felt a lot more at ease with him. “Yeah, I guess some things really are as good as you dream them to be.”
    “Well I’d like to repeat that dream if you don’t mind,” he said, and he kissed me again.
    I pulled him closer that time, mainly because I wanted to but also because I was cold. He had on a suit jacket that felt warm against my bare arms as I wrapped them around his waist.
    “You’re probably cold,” he realized. He was going to take his jacket off for me, but I stopped him.
    “I’m pretty sure I’ll be warmer if you just keep me like this,” I told him.
    He laughed as he closed as much of his jacket around me as he could . I wished I could lay my face against him, but I was wearing a little more makeup than I normally would and didn’t want to get it on his white shirt. We ended up kissing again anyways.
    “Well, I should probably get going,” I said after a while.
    I knew most of the wedding party was staying in the hotel that night, and I really wanted to enjoy the conclusion of the night withou t it being ruined with an invitation upstairs. Sometimes announcing a departure worked and sometimes it didn’t, but the way he’d been so persistent all night made me worry that—
    “Okay,” he agreed.
    He kissed me one last time and then separated from me. I did not like how cold it was without him, but it made me get into my car without a second thought.
    “Goodnight, Taryn. Can I call you tomorrow?”
    With a smile I said, “Yes, you can call me.”
    “Well can I take you out to dinner, too?”
    I chuckled as I replied, “Yes, you can take me out to dinner. I’d like that.”
    “You sure Magg ie’s okay with that?” he asked with a smirk .
    Oh shoot! Maggie…
    “Um, about that,” I said, getting out of the car again. “Uh, Maggie isn’t, uh… Well, Maggie’s my niece.”
    “Yeah, I know,” he nodded.
    “She’s my sister’s little girl and— What? What do you mean you know?”
    He smiled a nd said, “I know she’s not yours . How many four-year-olds call their mom by her first name?”
    I thought about that, but couldn’t remember a time that she actually had called me Taryn in front of him.
    “And your car is clean beyond belief,” he added, nodding to it. “Too clean to have a child.”
    “What?”
    “And even though you’re great with Maggie, I can tell that she’s not your daughter. That’s not a bad thing,” he added quickly, probably because he could tell I was a little hurt by it . “It’s just that there are little