One Day (A Valentine Short Story) Read Online Free PDF Page A

at waist level, and wiped the river water off his face.
    I eyed his dripping clothes in guilt. “It’s shallow water here, then?”
    His eyes danced with humor.
    “Sorry.”
    “My own fault. I should have listened to you.”
    I smiled sheepishly and pointed to myself. “Bad at boating.”
    My heart lurched as he grabbed the sides of the canoe boat, and for one second I thought he was going to topple me into the water in revenge. Instead he gently dragged the boat to the banks of the river and helped me onto land.
    “You need to get out of those wet clothes,” I said.
    “Ah,” he threw me a smirk, “So this was a master plan was it?”
    I made a face. “I assure you, I don’t need to resort to almost drowning a man to get him naked.”
    “I bet you don’t,” he murmured sexily.
    Trying not to flush and failing, I distracted us by gesturing to the boat. “What do we do with this?”
    He spun around, looking up through the trees. “I get my stuff from the van, while you tell the boat hire guys where to get the boat. And then we find some place where I can take a shower.”
    “No. You come with me to the boat hire guys. If they see the state you’re in, they might not be mad that they have to go out to find their damn boat.”
    That’s exactly what we did.
    And I was right.
    The guys were too busy giving me a lecture about not going out in a boat when I wasn’t confident in one, and putting my companion in danger, to care about having to rescue their boat.
    I took the admonishment, all the while wanting to kill Liam who was trying his hardest not to laugh all the way through the lecture.
    “Amused, are we?” I grumbled as we climbed the hill to where my camper van was parked.
    “Just a little.”
    I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Fucking Valentine’s Day.”
    “You know you curse a lot.”
    I did swear a lot. Will, the scientist who had dumped me last week, had told me it was the one thing about me he didn’t find attractive. Unfortunately, it was a bad habit to break. I’d grown up with three big brothers and an aggressive older sister. There was a lot of swearing in our household. You swore that much, you became attached to the words. Like “fuck” for instance. It was the only word that could be put in front of any other word and still make sense. There was beauty in that!
    “I’m not criticizing you,” he said softly at my silence.
    “Oh?”
    “It was just an observation.”
    “Three big brothers,” I said as way of explanation. “It’s a bad habit I can’t break.”
    “I don’t mind it,” he assured me. “You make “fuck” sound cute.”
    Laughing, I shook my head. “I’m sure.”
    “It’s true.” He threw me a grin before he opened the camper van doors and started rifling through his rucksack for dry clothes.
    While he did that I grabbed a coat hanger out of one of my carrier bags, shoved my sleeping bag and duvet aside and pulled down a hook near the roof of the van. “Give me your jacket.”
    “It’ll drip all over the place,” he said, realizing what I meant to do.
    “We’ll wring it out a bit.”
    After he shrugged the jacket off, we each took an end and did just that. When we got as much of the water out of it as we could without ruining the damn thing, I hung it up for him in the van.
    He gave me a grateful smile.
    “Now what?”
    “We passed a guest house,” he said, pointing in the direction of where we’d come from on our trek back from the boat. “When we were on the water I saw it.”
    “And what are you planning on doing?”
    “Charming my way into the owner’s shower.”
    Laughing, I followed him, carrying his dry clothes for him so they wouldn’t get wet from the clothes he was currently wearing. I had no doubt he could charm his way into a convent.
    The guest house as it turned out was a moderately-sized home with the most stunning views over the River Spey. I had my doubts that the owner would let a strange man use their shower, and my