Animal Magnetism Read Online Free Page B

jealous of a fucking pig.
    Lilah flashed an apologetic smile and climbed back into her seat, rebuckling her seat belt. “Runaway.”
    It took him a full sixty seconds to find his voice. “You seem to have your hands full.”
    “Little bit.” She turned in her seat to face him. “And I really am sorry about all this. Not that it’s an excuse, but I stayed up too late last night studying, and I wasn’t paying close enough attention to what I was doing.”
    “What are you studying?”
    “Animal science. I’m trying to finish up my degree online at night. I’d like to go on to vet school after that.”
    “Makes for a long day.”
    “Yeah. Keep going straight here.”
    On the outside of Sunshine now, the road was lined by forest, thick and unforgiving. Classic northern Idaho. After the glaciers of the last great Ice Age had melted away, they’d left meandering rivers and lakes of all sizes, most pristine, some more remote and intimate than any of the places in the far corners of the planet in which he’d been. Once upon a time, the vastness of those Bitterroot Mountains and the waters of the Coeur d’Alene had changed his life, given him a sense of self when he’d desperately needed it. He didn’t need it now. He knew who he was.
    A man not quite ready to face the past that was about to be shoved in his face.
    “So what brings you to Sunshine?” she asked, smiling when he glanced at her. “Maybe I just want to know more about the guy I’m going to buy a new rear bumper for. Thanks for sharing.”
    “No problem.” He watched as she licked the last of the chocolate off her lips. “Still hungry?” he asked, amused.
    “Yeah.” She licked her finger, scooping up a fleck of chocolate. He was certain she didn’t mean for it to be sexual, but watching her tongue run over her lips, hearing the sweet sounds of suction as she worked those fingers, was giving him a zing nevertheless. It was hard to tell what the rest of her body was like in those baggy clothes, but apparently it didn’t matter in the least.
    He was attracted to her, and he handed her the other half of his candy bar.
    She stared at it like it was a brick of gold. “I’m on a diet.” But she took it. “A see-food diet, apparently. I see food and I eat it.” She took another big bite. “I mean, I try to eat healthy, but I have a little thing for junk food. Uh-oh . . . ”
    “What now?”
    “Abigail, no.” She reached back and pulled the strap of Brady’s duffel bag from the duck’s beak. “She also likes to eat.” She laughed easily, and he found himself smiling at the sound with rusty facial muscles. His shoulders loosened and he realized he was feeling relaxed.
    And even more odd—at ease.
    “Are you here on vacation?” Lilah asked, petting the creatures in the box at her feet.
    “Not exactly.”
    She let that go, leaning back to watch the scenery, which was admittedly worthy of the fascination. Lush and green, the mountains loomed high thirty miles off in the distance, the exotic rock formation forming mouth-gaping canyons he’d once explored as an angry teen looking for a place to belong.
    His passenger let the silence linger, which he suspected was unusual for her. When he felt her watching him instead of the landscape, he turned his head and briefly met her gaze. Yep, she was waiting patiently for him to crack the silence. A good tactic, but it wouldn’t work on him.
    “Huh,” she finally said, slightly disgruntled.
    He felt the corners of his mouth turn up. “Used to people caving?”
    “ And spilling their guts.” She eyed him again, thoughtfully. “You’re a tough one to crack, Brady Miller, pilot and photographer. Really tough.”
    Not anything he hadn’t heard before. “I was thinking the same could be said of you,” he said.
    That got him a two-hundred-watt smile, along with a sweet, musical laugh. “True,” she agreed.
    The road ended, and he had two choices—the highway straight ahead, or left to head