Read Chance of a Lifetime for Free Online

cooking in the slow cooker. They should be falling off the bone by now.”
    He waited so long to answer that she wished she could take back the offer. She didn’t actually want to spend time with him, not really, and she certainly didn’t want to hear his made-up reason why he couldn’t come in.
    “You sure you got enough?” he finally said. “I’m starving.”
    “Yes. I always cook for the week on Saturday and Sunday.” She opened the door and climbed out of the truck. Without another word, she pushed the four-digit code to the main door and walked into the lobby.
    He followed.
    At the elevator, he waited as she punched the fourth-floor button. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d bolted.
    Once inside her place, he looked around appreciatively. “Nice,” he finally said.
    “It’s not much,” she admitted, thinking that she probably should have moved to a larger apartment, but she liked the top floor. “I kind of just collected the furniture over the years. Some of it was tossed away and I rescued it.”
    He touched an old Bentwood rocker that was next to a Victorian tea table. “It all seems to go together.” He glanced up at the bookshelf circling seven inches below the ceiling. “If the library ever needs books you could loan them a few hundred.”
    Emily laughed. “I’ve never been able to say good-bye to books. I thought of having someone come in and steal a dozen a month until I notice the space in the shelves.”
    “Might be a good idea,” he agreed.
    After he toured her other two rooms, she handed him a plate of ribs.
    “This looks great.” He remained standing until she joined him.
    They were halfway through the meal before she remembered drinks. “All I have is water and a few diet root beers.”
    “I’ll take the water,” he answered.
    When she jumped up to get the drinks, he asked without looking at her, “Why didn’t you move back to your parents’house? I’ve driven past it a few times over the years. It’s all boarded up.”
    “I guess because I’ve closed that door.” She lined up three chocolate kisses above his plate. “For dessert.” She smiled.
    “You’re pretty good at closing doors,” he said more to himself than her. “I kind of have the opposite problem. Every door I ever walked through in my life seemed to be revolving.”
    They finished the meal in silence. He took his plate to the sink, picked up his hat. “Thank you for the meal and for what you did for my mother tonight.”
    “You’re welcome.” She watched him closely, thinking there was little of the boy she’d once known. The man before her was far more stranger than friend.
    He shifted, widening his stance as if preparing for a blow. “I’d like to return the favor. Maybe I could buy you dinner so you don’t come out a day short on food this week.”
    “Maybe,” she said, the only thing she could think of that wouldn’t be a yes or a no.
    As she watched Tannon Parker walk toward his pickup, she tried to decide if she should let him back into her life. She’d spent years living in Harmony without having to face her past, but if she let him into even a small part of her world, she might not be able to close the door again.
    It was well after ten when she pulled her spiral journal out and wrote a moment of Tannon smiling with a touch of barbecue sauce on his cheek. She’d almost reached over to brush it away.

Chapter 4

T ANNON P ARKER DROVE BACK TO HIS PLACE . M OST FOLKS in town thought he still lived in the big rambling house his dad had built for his mother forty years ago. Ted Parker had been almost twenty years older than Paulette and no one mattered to him except her, not even his only son.
    Without turning on a light, Tannon climbed the stairs to his quarters above the Parker Trucking offices, his company and home since he’d left college his junior year. The old man hadn’t even bothered to clean out his desk—he’d just turned everything over after the car wreck. “Run