Never Stopped Loving You Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d wondered if she’d been dreaming. That forceful taking was what she’d once wanted out of Wade. An attempt to seduce her one last time and she’d fall into his arms, be swept away as she should have been all those years ago with her heart fluttering.
    Countless times she’d thought out the “what-if” in case he ever kissed her again. Entire scenarios had played out in her head of how she’d react, sexy things to say and where she’d touch him first. Of the dozens of scenarios she’d dreamed up, there’d even been one or two right there on that front porch. A heavy sigh eased out of her. As much as she’d wanted and hoped for a kiss like that, it shouldn’t have happened.
    After everything, they had no business kissing.
    Years ago she hadn’t kissed him because she’d been playing hard to get. It’d all been part of The Grand Plan to simply be different than his other girlfriends. Another wash of humiliation heated through her cheeks.
    Today she couldn’t kiss him because it was too much of a risk. If she fell for Wade and they didn’t work out—again—she’d never be able to face Whitney because she wouldn’t be able to step foot on Chester Farms to face Wade.
    Kara didn’t know what could be rebuilt of her life here. Whitney’s welcome was exaggerated, but she was trying. Trying was all Kara needed at the moment to find her way back home. Even if only a glimpse of the friendship they once had returned, it was worth it. Kara had already learned a few kisses wasn’t worth losing it all.
    Kara rested against the seat back in her car and stared over the hood to the old three-bedroom house and willed her stomach to settle down while a cold sweat of nerves draped across her forehead. She closed her eyes and simply breathed to prepare for what was waiting inside. She couldn’t call it a home. A nightmare or hellhole both fit, but not home. The white siding was aged with weather, time and, if it were possible for a building to be alive, she would guess stress. Living with her mom hadn’t been easy. Not that her mom noticed.
    That cold, dead lump in Kara’s heart that should be filled with her mother’s love lay there like a rock in her chest. Her mom hadn’t noticed much at all. Certainly not the piles of laundry and dishes in the sink. Or the rows of magazines and crap “discovered” at yard sales lining the halls until nothing but a slim trail weaved a path from one room to another.
    Especially not Kara. If not for Chester Farms, Kara probably would have been buried alive in first grade when her mother really started becoming obsessed with her daydreams. Nothing was more super than for a six-year-old to realize her mother dreamed so much of the life she wanted, she generally forgot her only child was alive. A pinch twisted in her chest so hard a sob escaped.
    Where her mother was distant, Jana Chester filled that void. At least, until Kara had gotten lost in her own daydreams and turned her back on the Chesters. Kara’s heart shook out unsteady beats that caused her fingertips to tremble. She’d flirted too hard with her mom’s crazy switch. That’s what they called it. What else could an eight-year-old put to words when her mom went from quietly watching TV to flipping her lid because Kara pushed a magazine over two inches to put a drink of water on a side table.
    Her mom’s screeching, unpredictable and nonsensical rants whispered through her mind. Like clockwork from when she was that little girl listening to it, Kara picked up the tune to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to block out the cruel words. She traced the smooth metal circles, making the emblem on her steering wheel as she hummed off the last of the verse. Seven years since Kara had jumped on her mom’s crazy train, turned her back on the ones she loved the most, and it still left her horrified. Those couple months when she’d tried making Wade jealous had been too close to turning her into her mother. It was easy to