Playing for Love at Deep Haven Read Online Free PDF Page A

strangers.”
    She was pretty
sure she heard a slight emphasis on the word definitely . It made the hairs on her arm stand up as a wave of
something delicious but unwanted flushed her skin. He came back out and stood beside
the hood of his car, and although she couldn’t see his expression clearly in
the dark, she felt his eyes on her.
    “Are you
married?” he asked quietly.
    She felt herself
wince, then looked down at the ground to hide it. “No.”
    He exhaled.
Audibly.
    “Then what’s the
problem?”
    “If I was
married, it would be a problem?”
    He shrugged,
standing beside her, next to the open trunk. “I could understand a husband not
wanting his wife to share a house with some dude from college that she once . .
.” His eyes held hers as his voice drifted off, and she could feel the heat in
them. She looked away from him, her mind flooded with memories she’d spent
almost a decade trying to suppress.
    “That was a long
time ago,” Violet said, reaching into her back pocket for her phone to see if
she had a signal yet. This unexpected reunion was way too emotional and
intense. She didn’t even want to think about Zach Aubrey, let alone chat with
him, let alone share a house with him. Besides, it felt like she was being
disloyal to Shep’s memory to even be standing here talking
to him. She needed to find out if there was a hotel in town and beg them for a
room.
    His expression
cooled as though he’d read her mind. “You still with that guy?”
    “Which g—”
    “ Shep Smalley.”
    He remembered Shep’s name? After all these years? Shep’s face flitted through her mind, and she had to
swallow the lump in her throat. She clamped her eyes shut and turned toward her
car.
    “No.”
    She felt his
hands on her shoulders, and her first instinct was to pull away—no, to run away from Zach Aubrey and all the painful
memories and confusing feelings that were rushing back to her. But she didn’t
pull away. She let his hands settle on her shoulders, her breath catching as his
fingers gently curled, grasping lightly at the fabric of her hot pink cardigan
sweater.
    “Hey, Violet-like-the-flower,”
he said softly in a voice that sounded so much like the old Zach, unexpected
tears pricked her eyes. “It’s nighttime. It’s dark out. Stay here tonight, and
if you still feel weirded out in the morning, I’ll
find a hotel.”
    She turned
slowly to face him, keeping her face as neutral as possible, and he withdrew
his hands from her shoulders. With the open trunk still affording a soft light,
her eyes fell to the shadow of dark scruff at his jawline and it irritated her that she found it so sexy. To distract herself, she raised
her gaze to his lips. Big mistake. They were as full as she remembered them,
quirked up in a coaxing smile. Frantically she raised her eyes to his nose,
then eyebrows, grimacing as she finally found something she didn’t like: the
silver stud in his nostril and two thin silver hoops over his left eye.
    He stepped back,
smile fading as he put his hands on his hips defensively. That’s when she
noticed he had rings on two or three of his fingers, as the metal caught the
moonlight, pulling her eyes to his waist. Catching herself, she quickly moved her
gaze up to his broad chest, checking out the faded T-shirt that read “METALLICA
GUNS N’ ROSES,” a garish skull with roses decorating the letters. More memories
rushed back but her lips tilted up this time.
    “Still listening
to the same loud, obnoxious music, I see.”
    “Aw, Vile,” he
said, sweeping his eyes up and down the shadows of her body, exploring hers as
she had his, “this shirt is vintage.”
    “Don’t call me
that.”
    “Why not?”
    “Just don’t.” She
didn’t want to be Vile to his Z. She didn’t want to be anything to him. She wasn’t anything to him. He’d made sure
of that. “You were capable of more. You were capable of something beautiful.”
    Write me something beautiful.
    She heard her
own voice in