Loving Mr. July Read Online Free PDF Page A

reached his shoulder. She had slight
frown lines between her eyes. She was either a little annoyed or
else determined, possibly both.
    Obviously, the last thing she wanted to do
was run. If the newness of that loud workout outfit indicated
anything, running wasn’t something she did often. He had barely
stopped himself earlier from telling her she looked like a giant
banana. It was a comment he could easily have gotten away with if
it had been any of his guy friends, but years and experience had
taught him the wisdom of silence on occasion.
    Kurt stopped, made Lucky sit. “So I usually
run to the south first, if it’s low tide. That way when we run
back, I can take Lucky to the dog area at the northern end as a
treat. This time of year, she can be off-leash. And she loves
it.”
    “Run to the south,” Cynthia repeated, an
uncharacteristic look of hesitancy on her face. “How far south are
we talking?”
    “If we run along the cliffs to the bridge and
back from here, it’s about four miles total. From here up to the
dog area and back, it’s another couple. So by the end of the run,
we’ll have done about six miles.”
    He stopped walking when Cynthia grabbed his
arm to slow him down.
    “Kurt, I’d be doing well to walk six miles,
let alone run.”
    “You don’t have to,” Kurt said. “We’ll go in
that direction, you go as far as you want to. I’ll run ahead and
catch you on the way back and then we’ll head north.”
    “If you’re not wanting me to run with you,
remind me again why I’m here?” Cynthia bent down to retie her
shoe.
    Kurt waited until she stood back up before he
answered. “Bocher Foundation ring any bells for you?”
    Cynthia raised her hand in defense. “Okay,
okay.”
    Kurt started running at his usual slow,
loping, warm-up pace. Within a minute or two, it was clear that
Cynthia was suffering. Her face had taken on a red hue and her
breath was labored. He decided to take pity on her and stopped for
a minute.
    “Now that we’ve warmed up, I usually stretch
a little before I pick up the pace,” he told her.
    “If I pick up the pace any further, I’m going
to have a heart attack,” Cynthia said the words slowly between
gulps of breath. “My warm up was walking to the water’s edge.”
    “Well, we’ve got three weeks of this. I’m
sure you’ll improve.” He kept his voice deliberately cheerful.
    He thought he heard her mutter, ‘if I live
that long,’ underneath her breath.
    “I’ll catch you on the way back?” At her nod,
he took off with Lucky, running quite a bit faster now.
    He was out of shape too, just not as badly as
she seemed to be. And although he had coerced her into coming
partly as a payback for the way they had all backed him into a
corner, it was also true that without a workout buddy, he would
have rolled over and gone back to sleep this morning.
    Running wasn’t one of his favorite
activities, especially alone. Granted, he had Lucky with him, so he
wasn’t completely alone, but he preferred the camaraderie of team
sports. Running was, however, very effective at getting him back to
shape in a hurry. And right now, it served his purpose of making
Cynthia work for her photographs.
    He pushed himself to go as fast as he could
to the mouth of the marshy area underneath the highway bridges he
used to mark the turnaround. Heading back north, he saw the bright
yellow outfit far before he could recognize her face.
    She wasn’t running. Wasn’t even walking.
    She was quite animatedly talking with a man.
Doing more than talking, apparently, as he watched her run her
fingers over the man’s abs.
    The man laughed and gave her a hug.
    She couldn’t be friendly to him, but within
half an hour of time by herself, she had managed to engage the only
other fool on the beach this early in conversation? And just why
was the guy running shirtless when it couldn’t be more than 55
degrees out?
    “What happened to running?” Kurt called out
as he approached, trying to