Never Let Go Read Online Free PDF Page A

the ailing bird for hours, stroking his head and asking him not to die.
    "Will you call the cab now?" she asked, her tone weary.
    Rucker swiveled toward her again. "Hell, yes."
    He removed his jacket, slung it across a recliner, then strode to a phone on a sleek walnut end table. Dinah curled her toes into the cream-colored carpet and remembered a cold winter afternoon when they'd lain there in front of the fireplace.
    Rucker had wrestled her new engagement ring away from her and given it to Nureyev. The crow had swooped around the living room with a four-carat diamond in his beak, perversely happy to be chased by a naked woman. Finally he dropped the ring into Rucker's glass of chocolate milk.
    Roaring with laughter, Rucker had invited her to "go fish." She'd emptied the glass on his stomach, then used her tongue to clean him up and retrieve her ring. He hadn't minded the milk bath at all. And Nureyev had talked nonstop from satisfaction over his role in the antics.
    "Can't get anybody," Rucker told her, and slammed the phone down.
    Dinah wiped her eyes and cleared her throat roughly. She couldn't expect Rucker to believe her sorrow. "Could I have something to eat? Anything—a glass of milk, crackers?"
    "Doesn't the banana king feed you?" He studied her face. "No, I reckon he doesn't. You look like you've lost about twenty pounds."
    "You're thinner, too."
    "I spent lots of time eatin' at bars. A diet of nothin' but booze and pretzels works like a charm." He went to the kitchen, angrily jerking the cuffs open on his plaid sport shirt. Dinah watched through the open door as he rolled up his sleeves. She got to her feet and shuffled after him, stopping in the doorway.
    "Why don't you just drive me to the bus station?"
    "I like holdin' you prisoner. It gives me a sense of revenge." He opened a can of soup and dumped it into a small pot on the stove. His knuckles were white from the force of his grip on the pot handle. "So tell me. Is it true what folks say about Latin lovers? Just how big are the bananas in Surador?"
    Dinah's heart twisted with sorrow for him. "I work for Valdivia. I don't sleep with him."
    He made a disbelieving sound and kept his gaze on the pot of soup. But she saw his chest contract as if he were holding his breath. "I know you used to have all sorts of notions about changin' the world. I thought you planned to start in your own country, not some jungle dictatorship."
    "I'm never going back into politics."
    He chuckled harshly. "Not in this country, at least. But you don't want to waste your nice little summa cum laude master's degree in political science." His voice dropped to a fierce rumble. "Hey, this'll be funny to you. The folks here in town just finished settin' up a memorial to their long-lost mayor. A big granite stone. It's in the square right next to the Civil War cannon. The garden club is gonna plant flowers around it. They think you're dead."
    Dinah went to a kitchen chair and sank down. She propped her chin on one fist and stared out a bay window into the stark, forbidding night, tears slipping down her cheeks. She had loved being mayor of Mount Pleasant.
    She'd planned to run for state representative. Rucker had always declared that she'd be governor one day. That had been her dream until Valdivia stepped into her life.
    "You don't believe what I said about Valdivia," she murmured. "That I don't sleep with him."
    "Nope. Don't believe anything you tell me."
    She stood, wiped her face with the back of one hand, and said calmly, "I love you. I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that, whether you believe it or not."
    He froze in place, his jaw working angrily. "You killed our baby."
    Dinah shut her eyes and wished she'd had time to make up a less devastating reason for leaving him. He was strangling on the lies she'd told to protect him from Valdivia, and there was nothing she could do about it. She pivoted stiffly and left the room.
    ***
    "What are you doin' in there?"
    "Taking a