The Wedding She Always Wanted Read Online Free PDF

barely left his mouth when a high-pitched female voice called out, “There you two are! Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
    Meg, Aileen’s longtime babysitter, ran toward them, worry and relief combining on her young face. “Emily, I am so sorry. I left the room for a few minutes to go get a drink from the soda machine. I thought Ginny and Duncan were still in the bedroom suite, watching a video. When I went to check on them and they weren’t there…”
    Her voice broke, and Emily wrapped an arm around the teenager’s shoulders. “Everything’s okay. Why don’t you take them back to the room now? I’m sure they’ll be more than willing to stay put now and finish that video,” she said, pointedly meeting her niece’s and nephew’s gazes.
    Ginny immediately nodded, but Duncan dropped his gaze to his bare feet. “I better not. I’m probably grounded and stuff for sneaking out.”
    Ginny reached out a sympathetic hand to her brother, and together they started back toward the hotel.
    Meg turned to Emily with a puzzled frown. “Did Duncan just ground himself?”
    Emily nodded. “I think so.”
    “Well, that’s a first.” Shaking her head, the babysitter thanked them for finding the kids before following her young charges back to the room.
    Waiting until they disappeared inside the hotel, Emily turned to Javy. “Okay, what was that about?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean, the whole talk in the treetop and Duncan forfeiting watching a video without anyone carrying him, kicking and screaming, away from the TV.”
    “Oh, that.”
    “Yes, that.”
    “It’s a guy thing. I really don’t think you’ll understand,” Javy said as he rolled down one of his shirtsleeves.
    “Try me.”
    “It had to do with Duncan seeing his house from the treetop.”
    “He couldn’t possibly. Aileen and Tom live almost twenty miles from here.”
    “Exactly. But sometimes a man has to take a chance, even if he knows he’s reaching for the impossible.”
    He wasn’t talking about her. She had no reason to think he was talking about her. But as Javy stepped closer, Emily caught her breath, unable to deny the single-minded focus in his gaze as he raised an arm, reached out and…took the jacket from her hands.
    Embarrassed and hoping her breathless assumption hadn’t been written on her face, Emily took a step back. Without his jacket to hold on to, her arms felt empty. She crossed, then uncrossed them before linking her fingers together in front of her.
    “Thank you for, um, helping Duncan.”
    “It was nothing. Just a typical day in the life of a superhero.”
    Emily closed her eyes and counted to five, but when she opened them, Javy was still there. “You heard that, did you?”
    “Yeah. Super hearing is just one of my superpowers.”
    “Along with your super ego,” Emily muttered, trying to maintain an unaffected air when, in truth, she was as impressed as her six-year-old niece.
    “There is that.” He laughed as he hooked the jacket collar on two fingers and swung the jacket over his shoulder.
    Catching sight of a long scratch marring his muscular forearm, Emily reacted without thinking. She stepped closer, ducking her head to try to see better. Taking his wrist in both her hands, she turned him more toward the light. “You’re hurt.”
    After a brief pause, Javy said, “I’m fine.”
    “You need to get this cleaned out. There could be bits of bark caught in the cut. It could get infected.”
    “Emily.”
    She wasn’t sure what exactly she heard in Javy’s voice, but the sound was enough to make her realize how close they stood together. How his breath brushed the side of her face. How the muscles in his arms had turned to stone beneath her touch.
    Helpless to resist, Emily looked up. With his dark hair and onyx eyes, he seemed a part of the night. Mysterious, cast in shadow and maybe even a little dangerous. His gaze dropped to her lips, and Emily swallowed hard. Make that a lot dangerous.
    She