Washed Away Read Online Free PDF

stood there, eyeing the rows of equipment all neatly set up, and the sense of foreboding that had niggled now, churned his stomach.
    “If you didn’t know the area, Mitch, didn’t know just how bad the storms and floods can be here, what would you do?”
    “Find out the hard way, I guess.” Mitch started to joke, but when he realized Noah was serious, he changed tack. “There’re announcements every few minutes on the radio, Noah. I’ve got teams out there guiding people to the evacuation centers. Even if you didn’t know the area, you’d soon figure out what was coming and find somewhere safe.”
    “I guess so.”
    “What’s on your mind, Noah?” Mitch asked.
    “I don’t know.” Noah gave a shrug, embarrassed to find Mitch eying him with concern. How could he explain to this down-to-earth guy this strange fear that seemed to be clutching his heart?
    It wasn’t just his belief there was a storm heading this way that was making him feel so edgy. He thought of those velvet brown eyes that had held his for a moment in time.
    Chocolate Girl was out there in a town that was turning more dangerous by the minute, and for reasons he couldn’t rationalize even to himself, it terrified the hell out of him.

CHAPTER THREE
    “I’ M THE LOCAL VET !” Pulling a face, Cheryl did a pale imitation of Noah’s voice as she drove angrily along. Even with a few miles safely between them, she was still stinging from the encounter at the gas station, still smarting from the local vet’s remarks as well as her own part in the exchange. She wished she could hit the rewind button on that awful conversation. Why hadn’t she just turned and said “No problem” when Dr. Perfect jumped the queue?
    That was what normal people did. Cheryl sighed. That was exactly what her response would have been two years ago: she would have shrugged and given an easy smile, bitten her tongue over a minor annoyance, instead of charging like a bull at a red flag, provoking confrontation…erecting barriers.
    It was almost second nature to her now, putting up protective screens around her heart the second she felt her guard was down. One look at the local vet and her guard had fallen around her ankles like a pair of panties without elastic. Good-looking, friendly and able to deflect her barbs—a heady combination, and the very last thing she needed right now. The very last thing sheneeded full stop, Cheryl thought, forcibly pushing all thoughts of the handsome stranger out of her mind. Pulling over to the side of the road, she checked her map. The directions and landmarks that had seemed so straightforward when Mitch had given them to her were almost useless now with the wipers going at full tilt and visibility down to near zero.
    If the weather had been bad an hour ago, it was dire now.
    She had to be near her destination, Cheryl reasoned, running a finger along the map, following her journey from Turning Point. There was the garage where she’d filled up the Jeep, there was the crossroad where she’d swung left, and over there…Wiping the side window with the sleeve of her coat, Cheryl glanced over at the swollen river gushing rapidly alongside the road, its dirty gray surf rolling more like waves on an ocean, before she turned back to the map. She’d followed the instructions to the letter, so where the hell was the farmhouse? She thought about calling Mitch, but decided to leave that as a last resort. Mitch didn’t have time to hold her hand today. Maybe she could wave down a passing car. But knowing her luck, it would be that smug vet that stopped to help. His already overinflated ego would be pumped up a touch further when he saw the scrape she was in….
    “Stop it,” Cheryl scolded herself. Why was she allowing herself to dwell on something so irrelevant? Wiping down the windows again, she was about to reach for the phone and admit she was hopelessly lost, whena driveway she could have sworn hadn’t been there a couple of moments