Falling for You Read Online Free

because he’s a scrawny geek he’s not interested in girls?”
    “He’s not scrawny.” She frowned at her brother.
    “But he is a geek,” Adrian pointed out.
    “Well, yeah,” she admitted as she pictured Chance standing before her in his button-down dress shirt and wire-rimmed glasses. “I guess. But in a cute sort of way.”
    “Oh, Rory,” Allison sighed. “Don’t do this to the poor guy. I remember him from school. He always seemed so nice.”
    “Do what to him?” Rory asked.
    “Break his heart,” Allison said. “Like you do all the boys.”
    “I do not.” Rory snorted. Why did Adrian and Allison always accuse her of leading men around as if they were love-sick puppies? True, men in general tended to be nice to her, but that was because she was a friendly person, not because of how she looked. Sure, she was attractive—she’d have to be an idiot not to know
that
—but she didn’t come close to Allison’s fragile beauty. With a wave of her hand, she brushed the nonsense aside. “Do you think we could get back to the real subject here, which is the fact that Pearl Island is for sale?
If
we’re interested.”
    Her brother shook his head. “Rory, I realize you are the original sunshine girl, but this idea is a bit far-fetched, even for you. No banker in his right mind is going to loan us the kind of money it would take to buy an entire island so we can open a bed-and-breakfast.”
    “Well, it never hurts to ask,” Rory said.
    “Rory.” Allison gave her fingers a squeeze. “It’s not that simple.”
    “How do we know—if we don’t even try?”
    Adrian cocked a brow at Allison. “She’s right, you know.”
    “Adrian!” Allison scolded. “Don’t encourage her.”
    “I’m just saying she’s right. We don’t know if we can or can’t do anything unless we look into it.”
    “Then we’ll do it?” Rory brightened. “Together?”
    “We didn’t say that.” Allison frowned at both of them.
    “But you won’t get mad if I go down to the bank tomorrow and talk to Chance about it.”
    “Do we have a choice?” Allison asked.
    “Of course you do,” Rory insisted. “If you don’t want this dream, then what’s the use of me pursuing it? I don’t want to push you into anything. This is something we do together, for ourselves, or not at all. So, what do you say?”
    Allison looked to their brother. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look into it.”
    “Are you kidding?” A devilish smile broke over Adrian’s face. “I’d kill to be in charge of my own kitchen. But Rory, I’m warning you not to get your hopes up. This is a one-in-a-million shot we’re talking about here.”
    “I know,” she said. “But one in a million is better than nothing.”
    He hesitated a moment before nodding. “All right.” Rising, he ruffled her hair. “You go for it, sis. In the meantime, I’m off to work.”
    “Thanks, Adrian,” she called to him as he left the kitchen. Squeezing her sister’s hand, she added, “Something good is going to come of this. I can just feel it!”
    Her sister looked less than convinced.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    Chance welcomed the strong breeze as he stepped out onto his parents’ back deck. Worries over the LeRoche foreclosure had kept him on edge all evening, in spite of the good food and familiar company. He took a deep breath, willing his shoulders to relax.
    An occasional light or sound of laughter came from the decks of neighboring houses along the golf course. Moonlight silvered the country club grounds, and in the distance the pulse of the gulf beat against miles of sandy beaches.
    “Oh, I have missed this,” Paige sighed as she joined him at the rail. “There’s no place in the world that feels quite like Galveston. It’s as if the very air holds magic.”
    A burst of night wind carried the scent of rain, and somewhere far out over the gulf, lightning flickered.
    “Magic?” He leaned a hip against the rail to study her. She had the quiet, cultured sort of looks