Stranded With a Hero Read Online Free PDF

words.” She turned the water on and rinsed out the sink, focusing on the mundane task rather than face the man she’d lost as a friend all of those years ago.
    “No, I’m the one who ruined our friendship,” he said, his words startling her. She glanced up and stared into his dark brown eyes, which were full of remorse. “I should’ve never told you that I had…feelings for you like that. My confession ruined everything.”
    “My refusing you and running off with Marty is what ruined everything, and you know it,” she countered. God, she could hardly tear her gaze away from his face. He looked so desolate, so full of regret.
    And so incredibly handsome.
    He shut the water off, his eyes never leaving hers. “I knew you were getting closer to Marty. The writing was on the wall and I realized that maybe…anyway. My telling you I wanted more than just friendship was pure panic on my part. I didn’t want to lose you. I was…” Sighing, he looked away from her, staring out the kitchen window. “Jealous.”
    Jealous? He’d been jealous of her and Marty so he’d tried to throw a roadblock in their budding relationship? She’d known Josh hadn’t liked Marty much, but she hadn’t really cared back then. She’d been too caught up in the throes of teenage love.
    Now she wished she’d been more aware of the signs. She and Josh had spent an inordinate amount of time together. It had started out as just friends—heck, they’d played in the mud with each other in preschool, splashed around in the lake together the summers between elementary school, and wrestled and beat each other up every chance they got that one summer when she’d been ten. They’d been like siblings. As they’d grown older, they’d grown distant in middle school but then once they started high school, they’d become even closer.
    Almost boyfriend-girlfriend type closer, though they’d never once kissed, besides her dropping a kiss on his cheek or Josh pressing a kiss to her forehead.
    Sort of like he’d done earlier…
    And then it had all changed. They’d been friends and then they weren’t. Seen each other at maybe a handful of social events in the ten-plus years since, spoken perhaps a handful of words to each other and that was it. He’d been a boy so ingrained in her life she couldn’t imagine him out of it and then he was.
    She’d never done a damn thing about it either. Just let Josh Powers slip through her fingers like tiny grains of sand, with absolutely no regret at the loss.
    Only years later, when she and Marty first separated, did she think of Josh again and how much she regretted losing his friendship. Completely selfish of her but she’d been so wrapped up in her own life and all her marital troubles, she couldn’t see anything else.
    “You know what I wish?” she suddenly asked, her voice soft, her heart picking up speed. She was about to say something crazy. Could only hope he didn’t think she was crazy for admitting it.
    “What?”
    Inhaling deeply, she hoped for courage to get her through this confession. “I wish I would’ve listened to you and given you—us—a chance. Maybe my life would’ve turned out…different.”
    His gaze darkened, if that was even possible, and his mouth twisted into a rueful smile. “Ah, Min, don’t say that. You would’ve gotten together with Marty eventually. The two of you were determined to be a couple. Once you snagged him, you weren’t about to let him go,” Josh reminded her.
    Did his words mean he would’ve regretted them trying to get together as teens after all? She had no idea. God, this conversation was confusing. “I can’t regret being with him since I have my boys, but I can certainly regret the way I treated you. How callous I was. I never once thought about how you felt when I—I rejected you and I’m sorry about that.”
    He shrugged, going for nonchalance but she could see the tension in his shoulders. They were rigid. “What’s done is done. No