Unravel Me Read Online Free PDF

they pulled in, he realized that the adjoining business to the yarn shop was an eatery he’d noted on his own previous explorations.
    His eyebrows rose as he pulled into a parking spot. “This is where you want to have lunch?” It was more his kind of place than hers, with the appetite-tempting smell of something sizzling in a deep fryer already reaching his truck. There was a small number of tables within the café proper, and then a stand-alone shelter harboring plastic-covered picnic tables. “I don’t think it runs to Asiatic pear and goat cheese salads.”
    She wrinkled her nose, which made her look fifteen. “Goat cheese. Yuck.”
    He laughed, and then followed her from the car and toward the restaurant’s screened door. Even though it was October, here in Southern California the temperature was summer-warm, the sky clear, and the view spectacular. The sound of the surf hitting the sand below mixed with the cars whooshing by along the coastal highway.
    Inside, she claimed a table next to a window while he ordered at the counter, lingering there to wait for the fish tacos—his—and the shrimp salad—Juliet’s choice. With a smile, he watched her pull a paper napkin from the table’s holder to brush the plastic surface free of unseen crumbs. Then she plucked plasticware from a foam cup and grabbed other napkins to set them each a place at the table. Such a lady.
    To a guy who’d eaten MREs from a ditch dug beside a Stryker combat vehicle, and who’d found those haute cuisine compared to some of his childhood meals, it was no wonder he was fascinated by her fastidious habits and elegant appearance. The slightest whiff of her top-shelf perfume could make his head spin.
    When he slid their tray of food on the table and dropped into his plastic seat, she was staring out the window across the parking lot. In the direction of Malibu & Ewe.
    He moved her paper plate and iced tea in front of her. “Should we have gone over there before lunch?”
    “I don’t mind putting it off a little longer.” She drew her drink toward her with a frown.
    “Juliet, no law says you have to have further contact with these women, legitimate claim to sisterhood or not.”
    “You want the truth?” Her gaze lifted to his.
    There were those eyes of hers, arresting in their difference, and just as arresting by their own individual quality. One was as blue as the Iraqi desert sky, the other the green that he’d dreamed about all those months of his deployment, when sand had been his second skin. “Sure I want the truth.”
    “Part of me is excited. Startled, sure, and I’m going to proceed with caution, I promise you, but if I’m honest, I’d have to say I’m a bit thrilled at the idea of siblings.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Thrilled?”
    She nodded. “My two best friends don’t live in the area. One’s a new mom in Seattle and my friend Kim’s opening a dance studio in London. It would be nice to have some people nearby who are on my side.”
    She said it as if she was all alone in the world. “What, I’m not people?” He tried smiling, but it felt forced. She was always so composed: He hadn’t considered how lonely she might be. Or how lousy he might feel hearing that he wasn’t enough for her.
    “Of course you’re people, Noah. It’s just that . . .”
    He groaned. “Tell me you’re not going to play the age card again. Even if you overlook my time in college and law school, before that I spent four years working for Uncle Sam.”
    “I know.” She looked down at her plate. “But at the risk of repeating myself, it’s not about you. Think, Noah. I was married to a much older man. After he became sick, there wasn’t much socializing, but while he was well, it was mainly with his peer group. So it’s not that you seem young, it’s just that maybe I feel . . . older than my age.”
    Noah had admired the general. Considered him an out-and-out genuine American. But damn it, had the man ever stopped to