The One That Got Away Read Online Free PDF

himself he would never take her for granted again.
    So she was meeting him at the airport, driving him to pick up Izzy and taking them to her house for the summer.
    Ten minutes later he was hauling his carry-on bag through the concourse, following the signs pointing to the baggage claim area.
    Taking in the sights and sounds of America again for the first time in so many years overwhelmed Marcus with a rare bout of nostalgia. The orderly bustle of American travelers, the sounds of English being spoken… He’d been in San Francisco International Airport countless times, but this time felt different. It was as if he were running away from his old life and the dangers it held. No, not really running away so much as leaving behind an old life for a new one that Fate had insisted upon.
    And perhaps more importantly, there was the feeling of anticipation of what was to come. His life as he knew it was about to be dramatically altered, not by a gunshot wound but a thirteen-year-old girl.
    His stomach roiled at the thought. For the first time, the decisions he made about his life, his career, would affect someone else as much as they affected him. His daughter’s life was in his hands, and it was a responsibility he wasn’t sure he knew how to handle.
    Marcus tried to find solace in the wide-open faces of the Americans he passed. Faces of every color, they held a quality not found in the more cautious, businesslike expressions of the Dutch or other Europeans.
    He passed a couple of airport shops and was bombarded by the shiny commercialism that also managed to top that of the Dutch by miles somehow. The products were more numerous, the food more varied, the magazines glossier, the women on the covers more unreal.
    And then he was descending an escalator, and his nervous energy doubled. Ginger had said she’d meet him near the escalator outside the baggage area. He scanned the crowd, looking for her signature curly auburn hair. When his gaze landed on a woman with exactly that hair color, for a moment he glanced away, sure it wasn’t his old college pal.
    But the recognition he’d seen in her own gaze caused him to glance back. Impossibly, it was her. She looked nothing like she had in college. This woman, this grown-up Ginger….
    No, it couldn’t be.
    But she smiled and waved and called his name. “Marcus!”
    It was her.
    He flashed a confused smile and stepped off the escalator to find himself enfolded in the embrace of a woman he barely recognized. Hugging her back, he fought to overcome his shock at the change in her appearance.
    All of a sudden she pulled away. “Oh! I forgot your wound. Is it okay to hug?”
    He laughed. “Don’t worry. My shoulder is mostly healed. There’s still a bit of pain but nothing to mention most of the time.”
    “Wow,” she said, taking a full step back to scan him up and down. “It’s so good to see you! You look exactly the same.”
    “Liar. But look at you . I didn’t even recognize you.”
    Ginger blushed. “Oh, well, I guess I finally lost the oversize sweatshirts and perpetual ponytail.”
    “And the glasses, and—” He stopped short, not sure what else to say except that she simply seemed…different.
    She’d always been on the curvy side, and he suspected her generous breasts used to cause her a great deal of embarrassment—hence the bulky sweatshirts that hid her figure. But now she stood proud and tall, her chest lushly displayed in a stretchy green top and her rounded hips accented nicely by a fitted denim skirt.
    Her hair, which she wore down, cascaded over her shoulders in luxurious waves, and something about her expression and her posture made it clear that she’d grown up a lot in the years since they’d last seen each other. Gone was the awkward coltishness of her early twenties. She now had the air of a woman who knew who she was and what she wanted.
    She shrugged, growing a little self-conscious under his scrutiny. “It’s been too long.” She turned