Destiny's Chance Read Online Free Page A

how close she’d come to losing her life. He threaded his fingers through hers. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s over.”
    He watched her chest move as she took a breath. Partly to distract her, he asked, “You hungry?”
    “Actually yes.”
    He squeezed her hand before gripping the steering wheel. “What would you like?”
    “A breakfast burrito,” she joked.
    He chuckled. “Anything is better than hospital food, right?”
    “True.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I do have a hankering for Taco Paco’s.”
    “Are you serious?” He snapped his gaze in her direction.
    “If you’d like another place, that’s fine. I’ll eat anything.” She shrugged.
    He checked the road, then glanced at her and furrowed his brow.
    She fidgeted in her seat. “What did I say wrong?”
    “You dislike Mexican food in general, and Taco Paco’s in particular.” She watched her weight and almost never ate fast food.
    “Oh.” She blushed, the color mingling with her bruises. “Maybe I thought I’d give it another try. Unless you don’t like it.”
    What game was she playing? “You know it’s my favorite.” He and Roman often grabbed lunch from Taco Paco’s. He went there without Zoe because she didn’t like it.
    “So let’s go there, then.”
    He’d give her what she asked for. “Okay.” He shrugged. “Drive through?”
    “Please.” She smiled.
    * * * *
    Chance pushed open his townhome door and gestured for Zoe to proceed. She inched inside but stalled out in the foyer.
    He brushed past her. “Let’s eat. I’m starving.” The smell of fast foot had filled the truck cab and caused his stomach to growl. He strode across the tiled floor to the small dining area connecting the kitchen and living room, and plopped the bag on the table.
    “Do you want a plate?” he asked. Silly question. Of course she did. A stickler for dining etiquette, Zoe insisted on real dishes. She even emptied her yogurt container into a small bowl.
    After grabbing a plate from the kitchen, he found Zoe still under the archway, eying the eating area, the living room, the small patio visible through the large window.
    “Something wrong?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “It’s nice.”
    He drew his brows together. “What’s nice?”
    “Your—nothing!” She flushed and twisted her hands, then smoothed them down the legs of her sweatpants. “I don’t need a plate.”
    She crept into the dining area and pulled out a chair—the one he used—and plunked her cute butt onto it. “I can do this,” he thought he heard her mutter.
    He frowned as he studied her face, taking in the gash, her bruises, her look of discomfort.
    “Is something wrong?” She nibbled on her upper lip and lifted her chin.
    That little tilt reminded him of somebody. Recognition teased his memory but scuttled away before he could grab it. “No.” He sat in her chair.
    He watched her delicately inhale an entire sausage, egg, and bean burrito, then wash it down with coffee, to which she’d added two teaspoons of sugar and milk. Strange. Zoe avoided sugar like poison.
    Surreptitiously, he assessed her condition. Like a boxer who’d been KO’d, her face had turned purple and red. But her bee-stung lips were plump, her china-doll eyes alert. She’d asked some worrisome questions in the hospital yesterday, and he’d considered ringing for the nurse and requesting an evaluation. She seemed clearheaded today except for the unusual behavior.
    Or maybe oddity, like beauty, existed in the eye of the beholder. How well did one know a person anyway? His conversation with Roman had gotten him thinking. After he and Zoe had officially called it quits, she had agreed to move out but almost immediately lost her modeling job with the auto-dealership consortium. She’d picked up a few smaller bookings, but none that would pay the bills on an apartment.
    Had she been dragging her feet, he wondered? He only had her word that she’d become unemployed. He felt guilty