My Last - Riley & Chelle Read Online Free PDF

life.
    Riley had opened up to her about his childhood. He had talked about his Mom’s battle with depression, which ultimately resulted in her losing her life. His mother, Cheryl, had been out of the picture for several years before tragically overdosing on sleeping pills.
    He had talked about wanting to leave Harper’s Crossing, to get away from the small town where everyone had an opinion about his life, his brother’s lives, and his mom's life...and death.
    He had also asked her about her plans for the future. He had listened as she told him about how she wanted to go into nursing. No one had ever asked her what she wanted to do with her life...well, except Katie. She hadn’t been ignored by her fa mily, exactly. Just maybe not seen . But on those nights, it had felt as if Riley saw her, really saw who she was. To this day, she had never felt a connection with anyone like she had experienced with him.
    She would still catch herself replaying those nights over and over again in her head. She had even dreamed about them sometimes. She sometimes thought that if Heaven were really going to be better than anything she had experienced here on earth, it would have to go a pretty good distance to outpace those nights she had spent sitting up and talking with Riley Sloan.
    His sandy blonde hair and gorgeous hazel eyes had been the stuff of her teenage fantasies...hell, who was she kidding? Her adult fantasies, too, for that matter. Every man she ever met, when she unconsciously measured their attractiveness, Riley Sloan was the yardstick she measured them against.
    She had yet to meet someone that measured up to the standard, let alone exceeded it.
    Riley had never known how she felt about him. No one did, not even Katie. But suffice it to say, Eddie definitely didn’t need to worry about Alex Sloan swooping in and stealing her heart. Nope. Alex never made her heart race, let alone stop cold. Not the way Riley did.
    It did make her start to wonder, though...where was David in that mix? Here she was, ruminating about men that got her heart racing to various degrees...and David didn't even come to mind?
    Hmmmm....
    She shook her head. Right now, none of that mattered. She just needed to make it through the cake cutting, incident-free. She needed to plaster on a smile and get through the rest of the reception with NO DRAMA. Then, lastly, she would get Katie into the limo that was taking her and Jason to O’Hare, where they were catching a plane to Bermuda for their well-deserved honeymoon.
    THEN, and only then, would she allow herself to fall apart.
    The cake cutting went off without a hitch. Jason and Katie kept it classy and didn’t shove the confection in each other’s faces, smearing it everywhere - which Chelle appreciated. She had never understood why couples did that. She had always thought that it was disrespectful, and more than a little tacky.
    Not long after the cake cutting, Aunt Wendy ran up to Chelle, headset firmly in place, and said, “The Limo's here, doll. Can you go find Katie?”
    Chelle nodded and turned to go do exactly that. As she was walking away, she heard Wendy say into the headset, “MOH retrieving bride...” and Chelle smiled. Probably the first genuine, non-hysterical, smile that had graced her lips the entire day. It was partly because she was amused by Wendy's super-serious-secret-squirrel-wedding-planner routine...but it was also due to her realization that – Woohoo! - she was almost in the clear.
    Once Chelle had bundled Katie into that limo and she was on her way to the airport, Chelle could take a moment to breathe and start to figure this whole debacle out.
    She moved forward with a fresh sense of determination, heading toward the last place she had seen Katie. She didn’t quite make it that far, however. As she was passing the wide doors that led out to the (closed and off limits) patio, she felt her arm being grabbed and, before she knew it, she was being dragged bodily through the