Time to Run Read Online Free PDF

down near the TV and sulk.
    "It'll grow out," Chase called after him. He sent Sara an apologetic grimace. "Sorry 'bout that. I should've used a different size head," he muttered.
    "That's okay." The apology appeased her. Not once in eleven years had Garret ever apologized.
    Skirting around Chase, Sara dropped to her knees beside the tub and stuck her head under the faucet.
    Warm water sluiced by her ears. Yellow-brown dye rushed down the drain. She was conscious of Chase coming to stand behind her.
    "You're missing some," he observed, and suddenly his hands were cradling her head, angling it under the stream to ensure that all the excess dye got washed out.
    A gasp wedged itself into Sara's lungs.
    He was touching her, and she could feel the strength in his gentle fingers all the way down to her toes.
    "All set," he said, turning the water off.
    Sara fumbled with the conditioning tube, squirting the white stuff into her palm and rubbing it briskly into her hair. Before Chase could help her again, she rinsed it out, not bothering to wait the requisite two minutes.
    He plopped a towel over her head. She came shakily to her feet, wondering when he intended to step out.
    "How do you want your hair cut?" he asked her.
    "Oh." From beneath the towel she added, "I think I'll cut it myself." Although, on second thought, Kendal's haircut had looked professional.
    "Suit yourself," Chase replied. "Concealment's what I do for a living. I know how to make you look different," he added.
    Sara wavered. Pulling the towel off her head, she looked at him.
    "Trust me," he said, his blue eyes compelling.
    She wanted to. She was longing to put her whole faith in him. If he could just act like the laid-back cowboy who'd rescued her in San Diego instead of this serious, uncommunicative commando.
    "All right," she agreed, taking her chances. She positioned herself before the mirror.
    "Color looks good on you," he said, lifting the comb and drawing the snarls out of her shoulder-length hair.
    She thought so, too, but watching him groom her was distracting. He was perhaps just six feet tall, several inches shorter than Garret, but his shoulders were twice as broad, making her seem petite by comparison.
    "I was blond as a child," she admitted. At one time, she'd been told that she resembled Meg Ryan, but that was way back before she'd started planning her escape.
    Chase put the comb down and picked up the scissors. He began by hacking four inches off her hair.
    Sara gaped.
    "Just need a place to start," he explained, with a hint of humor in his eyes.
    His fingers slid into her hair, just above her scalp. He tugged and snipped. Three more inches fell away. He repeated the movement, and this time it felt like a caress, which he repeated, over and over again.
    Sara relaxed by degrees. In place of her tension came a heightened awareness of him as a male, touching her in a way that Garret had never touched her. It wasn't meant to be sexual, but it made her acutely aware of her femininity.
    "You gonna change your name?" he inquired. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, moving without hesitation, from front to back, snipping off tendrils that drifted toward the floor to layer over Kendal's darker hair.
    It wouldn't hurt to tell him, would it? "Serenity," she admitted. She'd chosen the name when she'd first considered leaving, right after Kendal's birth.
    The look that he bounced off the mirror went straight through her. "Serenity what?"
    "I'd rather not say," she hedged.
    He was silent a second. "Good," he decided. "It's smart to be cautious."
    In lieu of asking more questions, he started twisting strands of her hair and snipping the ends. The shortness of the cut had Sara holding her breath, though she dared not complain. The idea was to change her look completely, and he was definitely doing that.
    "Face me now," he instructed.
    She did so, her pulse fluttering as she stood within six inches of him, gaze riveted to his muscle-corded neck and the pulse