Men of Courage Read Online Free PDF Page A

familiar features of her face. Rosie smiled at him and rested her palm over his heart.
    “You know, you owe it to yourself for the person you are, and to the community for theperson they see you as, to stop being a self-pitying jerk.”
    He lurched at the shock of her words, such a contrast to the mood she’d created. Rosie poked him in the chest. Her voice was no longer quite so soothing. “I understand how you feel, Ethan—”
    “You can’t have a clue.”
    That seemed to make her angrier. “You’re obviously, rightfully, embarrassed that Michelle jilted you.”
    “In front of two hundred people.” He hadn’t meant to shout, not that it fazed Rosie at all. No, if anything, she stepped closer until he felt her legs against his.
    She tilted her head way back so she could stare him in the eyes. “When you carry on the way you do, it looks like you’re still pining over her.”
    Ethan snorted. Personally, he thought just the opposite to be true. People saw him with different women, saw him enjoying his bachelor life, and it proved that he was over Michelle, that he didn’t care.
    That she hadn’t ripped his heart out.
    Leaning closer still, until her nose nearly touched his chin, Rosie said, “But I know you’renot lovesick, Ethan. I know, because you didn’t love her.”
    Ethan grabbed her shoulders to keep her from getting any closer. He would have moved away from her, but she had him boxed in. That thought almost made him smile. He weighed a smidgen off two hundred pounds, and Rosie couldn’t possibly go over one-thirty, yet she did her best to intimidate him with her body.
    Her best was pretty damn tantalizing, he admitted, when he felt her soft belly against his crotch.
    All humor vanished.
    She stared up at him, her eyes the color of an approaching storm. “You want people to know you’re over Michelle, that she didn’t really affect you? Well, I have a better suggestion than what you’ve been doing.”
    Ethan could barely breathe. Her mouth was right there, so close he could smell the toothpaste she’d just used and damn, it looked good. He wanted her, whether he denied it or not, whether he wanted to or not. Unable to move, he growled, “What suggestion?”
    “Get involved with a nice girl.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth and her voice lowered, went husky in a way he’d never heard from Rosiebefore. “Quit playing the sexist Neanderthal and get serious again. Stop running scared.”
    “I’m not—”
    She touched his bottom lip, stealing his thoughts, making him tense. She whispered, “Let me love you.”
     
    E THAN KEPT TO THE SHADOWS of the large elms that lined the street, skirting buildings while trying not to look too furtive. He wanted to see her without being seen himself.
    He couldn’t believe he was doing this.
    Actually, everything he’d done in the past twenty-four hours fell into the realm of the “not to be believed,” starting with getting rip-roaring drunk, and ending with Rosie in his bed. So what did one more idiotic thing matter?
    It didn’t. Besides, his curiosity was too keen to keep him away. Luckily, Riley’s studio had an enormous front window, so he’d be able to see what kind of lessons Rosie was taking without her knowing he spied.
    He could only imagine what she’d think if she knew. The silly goose already thought herself in love with him. If she thought, even for a second, that he returned that overly valued emotion…
    Ethan grunted, but deep inside himself something warm had started stirring the moment she’d said those four little taunting words. Let me love you.
    He knew it was only lust. And no wonder with the way she’d been coming on to him. An ordinary woman he could have withstood, but Rosie…he hadn’t wanted to chance it.
    Nearly panicked, he’d sent her on her way with the explanation that he loved her, too—as a friend, and only a friend.
    He’d looked her right in her beautiful blue eyes and lied through his teeth, telling her he