One More Dance by Roxanne Rustand (best ebook reader for pc txt) 📗

favorite corner store a few weeks ago while I was doing time there. It isn’t much, but it made me think of you.”

“So you did go back there.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Had to.”

She hesitated, then reached into the bag and pulled out an object wrapped in tissue paper. Inside, she found a glass figurine of a golden retriever. “It’s darling. But—”

“It’s just something small. Not a big deal. And in case you’re wondering,” he added with a tip of his head, “it isn’t a bribe to try to make amends.”

The retriever was almost a perfect rendition of her beloved Emma, who’d died last year, Kate’s dearest friend in the world. A coincidence? She felt her eyes burn.

Jared seemed to read her thoughts. “I saw the photo of you and your dog on your desk, the night we shared that pizza.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, cradling the dog in her hands. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

He glanced at her stack of textbooks and pushed away from the table. “I guess I’d better be going, so I can hit the books, too. See you around.”

He’d followed through and kept his word to a store clerk. He’d been thoughtful enough to see a little figurine and think of her. And he’d apparently kept a family commitment above a casual social commitment of his own...which she could understand. “Wait—”

At the nearby tables, students looked up and frowned at her, but she didn’t care. With the vet school on the Saint Paul campus and the law school over on the Minneapolis campus, maybe she’d never even see him again.

She caught up with him at the door to the stairway. “I...just wanted to thank you for thinking of me. And for coming all the way over here.”

“No problem.” He zipped up his jacket. “Good seeing you again.”

There was an invisible barrier between them now, and she didn’t know what to say. “I—I’ll be free after my exams tomorrow. In the evening...”

He shrugged. “I have to be with my study group. Tax law.”

“Maybe we can study together some other time.”

“Maybe.” He pulled open the door. “Look, I know you aren’t all that interested, but maybe I’ll give you a call sometime. Deal?”

She nodded, feeling the chasm widen between them, and wished she were like Deanna and Leesa, who always seemed to have guys following them like imprinted ducklings, and who could draw new recruits with a single flirty glance. “Deal.”

He disappeared down the steps, but even after he was gone she lingered at the door.

He’d touched her in some indefinable way, and now she found herself drawn even deeper into his spell. Her entire life had been one of daring to go beyond expectations. Facing challenges. Taking risks. Except when it came to her heart.

Call me, she whispered to herself as she turned back to the responsibilities that lay strewn across the library table. Please.

She’d barely settled down to study when the stairway door squealed open, Jared came back in and strode across the room with a determined set to his jaw and a twinkle in his eye.

He grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. Took her hand. “Come with me now. Just five minutes.”

Dazed and feeling unaccountably giddy, she let him lead her down the stairs, across the lobby and out into the cold night air, where immense snowflakes swirled on the chilly breeze like lacy doilies beneath the security lights. Already, the tall pines were dressed in heavy, sparkling mantles of white, and the snow on the sidewalks was ankle deep.

“It’s too beautiful not to share,” he said, drawing her into the warmth of his strong embrace. “Coming out here made me realize that you’re the only one I’d like to share this with. I’m not a quitter, Kate.”

He looked down at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, his face shadowed by the lights overhead. “Unless you tell me to go, I’m not walking away from something that feels so right.”

A thrill of awareness rushed through her when he kissed her. She melted against him, feeling as if she’d always been part of him, as if she’d known him from the beginning of time. And when he pulled back, she impulsively wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him to her again.

“I think,” he said after he’d caught his breath, “that we’d be crazy not to see each other again.”

She leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest. “Agreed.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I—I still do have to study...and need to write a paper.”

“Good. We’ll meet here then, at the library. Maybe grab a hamburger or something before?”

She thought of the change in her purse that had to stretch until Saturday. “Um...my place, maybe? All I’ve got is mac ’n’ cheese or hot dogs, but it’s cheap and paid for.”

“Great.” He kissed the tip of her nose and released her. “Tomorrow, then.”

She watched him jog toward the campus bus stop, her heart overflowing.

It wouldn’t last. These things never did...not when he learned about her family. Especially not if he ever happened to meet her mom.

But for a little while, she was going to enjoy her time with this perfect, unattainable stranger.

And what could be wrong with that?

NOVEMBER PASSED IN a whirl of study dates. Meeting over coffee or pizza or yet another box of generic macaroni with neon orange cheese. Just being with Jared warmed her clear down to her toes, and hearing his voice on the phone sent shivers skittering down her spine.

Heavy snow had come hard, fast and early, turning the side streets near the university into rutted pioneer trails that were nearly impassable in her ancient pickup, even with sandbags stacked over the rear axles, and kept the campus buses limited to only the major streets more often than not.

Now, with Thanksgiving break just a day away, Kate looked out the kitchen window of her apartment at the bleak snowscape and shivered as yet another blast of icy air whistled through the window frame. Already, the sky