You're Still the One Read Online Free PDF

“No!”
    He was quiet again, but I could tell he had an attitude about it all.
    It was dark outside, with blues, pinks, and yellows skittering across the sky, and still and silent except for my ranting.
    I hardly knew what to do with this silence after living in the city for so long. I hardly knew what to do with the cooing of pigeons and the wind hugging the leaves of the apple trees. When Marvin the cat meowed behind me, I about jumped out of my skin.
    I had always slept like a dead woman through this part of the morning. When I did get up, mornings were stressful for me, putting together some couture outfit so I could “look the part,” commuting to work, planning my day, all the relentlessness of work ahead of me. I was on full blast.
    But this tranquility, the hills golden in the distance, the mountains purple to the west, a vineyard east of me—it was truly serene, like silk and a kaleidoscope mixed together. The country calmed me down. It made me see and hear things I had not seen and heard before.
    I noticed that the lights were on in a Craftsman-style home with a huge deck on top of the hill. I’d seen a moving van up there a few weeks ago.
    Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodle-doo’d again.
    “Shush!” I hissed. “Oh, shush.”
    When I was at my door, that rebel rooster cock-a-doodled again, and I finally laughed.
    Yes indeed, I laughed.
    But this I knew: You won’t win against roosters. Especially when they’re named Mr. Jezebel Rooster.
    I went back to sleep, then later pulled on my boots and started hobbling around the property.
    A red barn, in fairly good shape, squatted about a hundred yards from the house. I thought of it as Spunky Joy and Leroy’s home. I fed them their hay and grain, and gave them fresh water. They seemed excited to see me—they neighed, swung their heads, pranced about. A helpful neighbor, Rita Morgan, a retired FBI agent, had shown me how to saddle and how to ride and I rode them most days on a nearby horse trail, which they loved.
    The barn had a hayloft and I climbed the adjacent ladder, about twelve steps, to peer into it. I had not yet done so, and I was curious.
    This did not prove to be a good idea.
    I heard the splintering, I heard the first crack, then the second, third, fourth, as all the rungs broke straight through and I tumbled right down, then through the air, my ankle twisting on the last remaining rung as I landed on my back.
    “Oof,” I said, then let fly a few bad words, crackling pain ripping through my body.
    Spot the Cat, the cat with no spots, wandered over. My leg with the purple and green bruising and the stitches had been feeling much better. My left ankle was now killing me.
    I groaned and pulled up my pant leg. There were splinters everywhere and my ankle was swelling rapidly.
    “Help me, Spot the Cat,” I muttered.
    I felt faint for a moment, that breathless feeling you get when pain makes you sick, then I lay back down in the hay, staring at the rafters. Two pigeons and Spot the Cat peered down at me. Hay from the hayloft drifted down. What on earth was I doing on a farm? Why was I on my back in a pile of hay? Mr. Jezebel Rooster cock-a-doodled on his fence post. He gets his times messed up.
    I shook off the pain and told myself to buck up and go to the hospital. I lay still for another fifteen minutes or so, Spot the Cat licking my face, sitting right by me like a true friend.
    I half limped, half crawled back to the house, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed to my car. I told myself in my foggy haze of excruciating pain that Jace probably wasn’t even working. The last time I’d been there was six days ago. He worked twenty-four-hour shifts, then forty-eight hours off. It would be another shift of doctors, right? I couldn’t think.
    I pulled into the hospital parking lot and sat panting in my car, hands to my spinning head, both legs throbbing. I gathered my bearings, caught my breath, shook my head again to clear the awful nausea, and