Trust Read Online Free PDF

she’d appreciate a fresh kill.
    He put the rest of the jerky away, deciding that he would offer it to her later when she hopefully came to her senses.
    “The river’s deep here, if you’d like to wash up before we leave,” he told her.
    He could tell that it had been a few days since she’d bathed, and while she didn’t smell bad, he was eager to know what her scent would be like once she had washed up.
    Taylor murmured something that sounded so ridiculous he had to have her repeat herself.
    “What did you just say?” he asked, leaning in closer to her.
    The color in her cheeks darkened. “I said I can’t swim.”
    “Everyone can swim.” Even young pups knew how to swim.
    Taylor stood and smoothed out her skirt. “Yeah, well, everyone except for me. Shouldn’t we be going?”
    “Where are you from that you don’t eat meat and you can’t swim?” he pressed.
    “I’m from a lot of places,” she said flatly.
    “So you weren’t lying about that,” he said.
    She tilted her head. “What?”
    “In the truck, you told me that you moved because of your mother’s work,” he reminded her.
    Her shoulders sagged. “No, that was a lie,” she said sheepishly. “I grew up in foster care.”
    “Where is that?”
    “Foster care,” she repeated, rolling her eyes at him.
    Alder could tell it was another one of those things he should know, as a human. He wanted to ask her if all humans who came from foster care didn’t eat meat or know how to swim, but he decided to save the question for later.
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    T he journey through the foothills was much less grueling than their initial flight into the forest. By all appearances, they either hadn’t been followed, or their pursuers had gone in the wrong direction. Despite the fact that she was kind of hungry, kind of tired, and kind of had no idea where they were headed, Taylor felt better than she had in days.
    They followed a narrow deer trail that wound through the woods. Massive trees shot up from the ground, their leafy branches forming a lush green canopy overhead. Although the trees provided some protection from the sun, the summer air was still thick and humid.
    Taylor distracted herself from the heat with bird watching. Every time she saw a new bird, she’d point it out to Alder and he’d tell her what kind of bird it was. Either he was an expert on birds or he was just making up names, and she didn’t really mind either way.
    The beautiful red and black ones were scarlet tanagers. The ones that looked like pretty pigeons were rain doves. Her favorites were the towhees, little red-streaked birds that hopped from tree to tree, following them as they trekked deeper into the forest.
    “What’s that one?” she asked, pointing to a small bird with a yellow head.
    “A black-throated green warbler,” he replied.
    Taylor laughed. “Okay, you’re definitely making that…”
    The rest of the sentence died in her throat as Alder began removing his shirt. In the day that she’d known him, when she wasn’t fearing for her life, Taylor had given some consideration to what Alder would look like without his shirt. Apparently, her imagination sucked, because the actual sight of his bare chest had her forgetting how to breathe.
    There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. His chest was nothing but rows of chiseled muscles topped with broad pectorals. He was hairless, save for a trail of brown curls on his lower abdomen, which disappeared into his jeans.
    “You were saying?”
    Taylor snapped her head up to find Alder smirking at her. She averted her eyes, running a hand through her hair while she tried to remember what they’d been talking about.
    “Are you hot or something?” she muttered, suddenly feeling irritable.
    “Aren’t you?”
    If she’d been hot before, she was now sweltering, but she wasn’t about to admit that.
    “I have a high tolerance for heat. It’s the cold I can’t stand.”
    When he didn’t respond, she glanced back at him. Alder had