Save My Soul Read Online Free PDF Page A

it again. I save things. When I was little, my mother and I rescued a crow from the side of the road, and we nursed it back to health. He stunk and made too much noise. But when we released him in the canyon, and I watched him fly above the trees, my heart exploded.” She patted Carlos’s cheek. “I’m going to get you to fly again, and that’s a promise.”
    The water trickling down his face wasn’t from the lake, and she instinctively swiped at the tears. “Do you meditate?” She pushed off the scratchy wood and sat, pulling her knees to her chest.
    He followed her with his eyes.
    â€œMeditation is like prayer,” she said, patting the pier. “Sit by me, and we can pray together.”
    He didn’t move.
    Maggie refused to be discouraged. She folded her legs into a pretzel with opposite ankles resting atop opposite inner thighs. Straightening her back, she dropped her shoulders and softened her forehead. Her tongue pressed loosely to the roof of her mouth. Her lips parted slightly, and her hands rested palm up on her knees. She let her gaze linger on the glossy water and distant trees before her lids slipped closed and her mind emptied in search of something strong enough to save them both.

CHAPTER THREE
    Jordon didn’t tread lightly. He preferred the opposition to see him coming and quake in their shoes. But the vision on his pier stopped him cold, and when he moved forward again, his feet barely touched the composite decking.
    As he walked closer, Maggie came into clearer view. He saw the bumps of her spine stacked one on top of the other, perfectly perpendicular to the faded planks she sat upon. Her squared-off shoulders rounded at the edges, and he followed the long line of her arm to the barest glimpse of knee where an upturned hand rested. He swept his gaze back over her arm and shoulder to her graceful neck, supporting a head full of black velvet hair.
    He tried to swallow, but struggled with the mindless motion.
    When he was a few feet away, he saw her eyes were closed as she sat in a traditional pose for meditation. He didn’t feel the least bit compelled to roll his eyes, which may have been a first. On the contrary, if he weren’t dressed in a two-thousand-dollar Versace suit, he’d drop to the pier beside her and share the peace. For a moment, he wallowed in the emergence of foreign feelings, but then darkened when he thought about the chaos that would destroy his peace the minute Maggie opened her mouth.
    He knew his words would come out rough — maybe even startle her — so he quieted as much as possible. “What the hell happened?”
    Her eyes stayed closed as she brought her hands to her chest in prayer formation and mouthed something he couldn’t understand. When she turned to face him, all he could see was a head wound the size of a golf ball above her brow.
    The uneasy impulse to touch her forehead lifted his hand, but he shoved the wayward limb into a pocket instead. “Did you get that here?”
    â€œNo.” She pulled the edges of her skirt over bare knees and unfurled to stand, moving like an over-sexed ballerina. When she stretched her arms into the air, her tank lifted over the milky skin of her flat belly.
    Jordon adjusted an unwelcomed movement below his Louis Vuitton belt and blasted an exhale through his nose. “Are you going to tell me what happened here or do I have to guess?”
    The gruffness returned, but by then he was too distracted to care. His gaze, having dropped to her chest, stuck on two dark, hard circles poking against her flimsy shirt.
    He shrugged out of his jacket and stepped forward, pressing the silk lining to her back and yanking the peaked lapels over her breasts.
    â€œI’m fine.” She wiggled to shed the jacket.
    â€œYou’re not fine. You’re cold. Trust me. I can tell.” He returned his hands to his pockets, feeling rather chivalrous.
    Her brown eyes