Until I Found You Read Online Free PDF Page B

concentrate on the road—not Kate and the Rorschach test on her sweater. Nick knew what he’d seen, what any man would see. Kate Darby had curves in all the right places. A man couldn’t help a first glance, nor could he control natural interest. It was the second look that mattered, the second thought that led to mistakes. Never again would he treat women and dating casually. As Nick and the captain of the Titanic both knew, accidents happen. He wouldn’t let Kate turn into an accident—emotionally or physically. Under normal circumstances, he’d avoid her. But these circumstances weren’t normal. She was Leona’s granddaughter, stranded without a car, traumatized, and . . . admit it  . . . beautiful in his favorite way. Common sense told him to keep his distance, but both common decency and his Christian faith demanded he reach out to her. In his mind he made a checklist.
    1. Check the battery in Leona’s car.
    2. Open the chimney flue.
    3. Haul in firewood.
    4. Make sure Kate had dinner.
    No, not dinner. Dinner would count as a date, and Nick was dead set on keeping his one-year pledge. Other rules,though, were meant to be broken, specifically Captain McAllister’s directive to stay out of the canyon. Nick saw no reason to wait until tomorrow to salvage Kate’s things. He needed a hot shower, but after he cleaned up, he’d trade the motorcycle for his truck and take the fire road to the scene of the crash. If her purse had bounced out of the car, he’d find it. At the very least, he could collect the things from the popped trunk and take them to Leona’s house. But no dinner invitation. No banter. Like a U.S. Navy Seal, he’d go in with a plan and get out fast.
    Houses began to appear in the mountains above the two-lane highway. The homes were mostly log cabins, but a few cottages and old A-frames poked through the mix of pine and oak. The rustic charm gave way slowly, first to a gas station, then a convenience store with a sign shaped like a giant wagon wheel. The first time Nick cruised into Meadows, he thought he’d discovered a Hollywood set caught between a remake of Heidi and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven . The older buildings had an alpine look—steep roofs, gingerbread trim, and colorful shutters. They harkened to the 1980s, when Meadows was home to a Santa’s Village. The reindeer were gone and the buildings had lost their luster, but the Chamber of Commerce hadn’t given up. The newer buildings were western style with split-rail fences, and souvenir shops that sold cowboy hats, fool’s gold, and maps to a lost gold mine.
    The small town appealed to Nick for all the best reasons. People took care of each other, but there were also fights over guardrails, local politics, and environmental issues—plenty of things to talk about with locals at the coffee shop, where he frequently ate, or with Hector, the mechanic who had Harleys in his blood. He could have done without the gossip about his marital status—and Chellie Valerio, a hairdresser whoboldly flirted with him. But otherwise people were friendly without being intrusive. Everyone knew he’d written a travel guide that pushed the boundaries of common sense, but no one knew about his daughter, and he wanted to keep it that way. In Meadows he was the new Nick, a better man, or at least he was trying to be.
    He steered on to Falcon Drive, climbed the last three miles to his house, and pulled into the driveway. Helmet off, he blew out a breath to clear his lungs, then inhaled as deeply as he could. He was home, such as it was. A hot shower waited for him, then he’d head to San Miguel Canyon and search for Kate’s belongings. When he finished, he’d call her on Leona’s house phone. No dinner invitation, he reminded himself. As for working together at the Clarion, he expected Maggie to be a buffer. The friendly editor talked all the time, which meant Nick wouldn’t need to say much about the paper or anything else.
    He’d be