Seduced in September (Spring River Valley Book 9) Read Online Free PDF

entertainment portion of his meal. She shooed him away and turned to face the refrigerator. “How about you?”
    “The best. I was disappointed that you were gone when I woke up.”
    “Oh, yeah. I had…to feed the dog.”
    “Oh, you have a dog?”
    “No. My aunt’s dog. She’s away visiting her daughter, and I’m…pet sitting.”
    “Ah. That’s nice. Uh…I was thinking since last night went so…well, maybe we could do it again.”
    “It?” Her heart thumped. They’d done “it” quite a number of times. Why was she surprised he’d want a repeat?
    “I mean go out. Maybe have less noise, less…booze this time. It might be fun.”
    “Oh, I don’t know.” Wasn’t this exactly what they’d decided wasn’t going to work? She’d made the analogy last night that he was a sports car and she was a covered wagon. He’d either leave her in the dust in a relationship or she’d slow him down to a crawl. The only reason last night had worked was because she was turbo-charged and utterly sick of trundling along in the ruts others had left before. She had wanted to fly along the highway and watch everything blur as she whizzed by, if just for one night.
    “Come on. Didn’t you have fun last night?”
    A little too much fun. “Of course, but…I thought we agreed it was just, you know .”
    “That doesn’t mean we can’t do it again. Not ‘it’ exactly, but just hang out. Right?”
    Slippery, slippery slope. Why wasn’t she putting on the brakes? Why was she licking her lips and thinking about “it”? And why on earth was she saying, “Okay. Sure.”
    “Perfect. What about tomorrow night? We could get dinner?”
    A date? How had the conversation gone last night? He’d said he was tired of dating, and she’d said she totally understood where he was coming from, and they’d both agreed no one needed messy, complicated relationships that began with dates. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”
    “Awesome. What time’s good for you?”
    “How about seven? You can just pick me up at work.”
    Silence followed her suggestion. “Quinn? You still there?”
    “I…amm… sshhhhs .”
    “What’s wrong?” It sounded like the call was breaking up.
    “Can you hear me? Shhhshshss. ”
    “A little. The connection went bad…” She heard a few disjointed words after that, lots of static and something about a tunnel and no bars. Either he was in a tunnel and had no bars, or he was digging a tunnel and didn’t want to go to any bars.
    “Call…me… shhhhshhshsh ….back…” was the last thing she heard before the line went dead.
    “Okay,” she said, then cringed when she realized he hadn’t heard. She searched recent calls and found his number, but before she could hit dial, the phone beeped. Low battery. Damn. She’d forgotten to put the phone on the charger when she…oh, right. She hadn’t come home last night, she’d come home this morning. Crap.
    “The number. Don’t die before I get the number.” With Ricki still weaving in and out between her feet, she rummaged in Aunt Maddie’s junk drawer for a notepad and a pen. She found an old match book and a golf pencil and decided they would have to do. As the glow from the phone display faded, she jotted down Quinn’s cell number.
    Ricki yipped and ran to the back door where he danced a very specific jig. “Okay, okay.” Lily let him outside and, grateful for the relative peace, grabbed the landline and started to dial. A voice in her head that may have been her conscience asked her if she really knew what she was doing. She hesitated before the final digit. A date with Quinn would break all the rules she’d broken last night all over again and more so. No cops, no firemen, no EMTs, no doctors, no nurses. Anyone who worked in or around the hospital was off limits because when the relationship tanked—and they all inevitably did—how could she sit at the ER reception desk and smile cheerfully as an ex-lover passed by day after day? It just made