Read Long Time Running for Free Online Page A

at each other but every once in a while, all that just disappeared.
    Andrew gently smoothed her back as she tried to catch her
     breath, "One step at a time Sarah," he told her gently. "You're going to be okay." He just wished he could say the same thing about his best friend.
    #
    Lying on her side, her face smushed into the pillow, her
     breath was a soft ruffle. Leaning against the wall Eric stared at her in disbelief. With the exception of her short shorn hair she looked very much like the woman who had shared his bed one night and left him the next; clearing out while he was at work, leaving an inadequate note to poorly explain why she had
     broken his heart.
    After being kicked out of her room by her sister, he had stormed down the hallway, ignoring Andrew calling after him. He had returned to the exam room where she had collapsed and had sunk into the chair. His heart
     had hammered loudly inside his chest and his brain had felt like it was going to explode. There wasn't anything that could have prepared him for seeing her again. As he had sat there trying to gather himself a glint from the floor had
     caught his eye. Bending down, he had picked up a locket that had partially slipped under the table. Instinctively he had flipped it open and all the air had rushed from his chest. On one side of the locket was a baby photo and
     without being told, he knew it was Jack. The other side held a four leaf clover. He had been instantly transported back to that night in Dublin where he had given it to her.
    The locket left him feeling terribly confused. As a coping
     mechanism he had, over the years, convinced himself Nathalie had never really loved him, that the moments he had held so dear were meaningless to her and the depth of their connection was an illusion. Once Sarah had introduced Jack into
     his life and despite him knowing something terrible had to have happened for her to give him up, he had painted her a villain, as shallow, unfeeling and manipulative. But the picture and the four leaf clover told him that she had loved him. It also reminded him that he had absolutely no clue what had driven
     her to make the choices she had.
    Watching her snuggle further into the blankets he remembered all the nights they had spent wrapped around each other. His heart raced as he
     remembered how well he knew every inch of her body and she his. There had been other women since she had left but none of them were capable of making him feel, in bed or out, the way she did. He wondered savagely how many nights she had spent wrapped around her new boyfriend's body and if he could make her
     shriek and moan the way he had.
    Peeling himself off the wall, he moved towards the door but stopped cold as she called his name. Slowly, he turned around and looked at her. Their eyes connected and Eric felt it like a punch to the stomach. Anger
     at her, and at himself for caring, churned just below the surface waiting to find an opening to be expressed.
    "Don't go" she asked quietly.
    "Sarah says your boyfriend went back to the hotel"
     he told her flatly.
    Pulling herself to a sitting position, she swallowed thickly. "I know."
    Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out her locket and
     placed it on the night stand. "This fell off during your seizure, I thought you might want it back." He decided not to tell her he had looked at it; he was not yet ready for that conversation.
    Her panic was obvious to him as she snatched the locket from
     the table and unsteadily put it back around her neck.
    "Thank you."
    He nodded and took a small measure of satisfaction at the obvious distress she was experiencing. Eric did not to think he was a cruel
     person but he was relieved to know that their reunion was causing her more emotional pain than her calculated departure apparently had.
    Nathalie winced and rubbed the furrow over her brow. Eric
     pushed back the rush of emotions and memories to focus on her present condition.
    "Given the placement and size of your