Levi's Blue: A Sexy Southern Romance Read Online Free Page A

more and nothing less. 
    And now it’s over.
    “Well, thank you again for your help tonight.  I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”
    With that, I do my best to walk away with dignity.  Well, as much dignity as a woman walking with a cane at a snail’s pace can muster. 
    I walk away and leave him behind. 
     
     

 
    CHAPTER 4
    LEVI
     
    I’M ONLY in town for a few days.  There are a number of things I should be doing today, and not one of them entailed attending a painting class for kids with disabilities and people with PTSD.
    And yet here I am.
    In a classroom full of just such people.
    I’m guessing I’m the only one here for the singular reason of stalking Evian de Champlain, though.
    I’m sandwiched between a sweet little girl with no hands and a teenage boy with only one eye. We all sit quietly, waiting.
    It wasn’t hard to get into the class once I told them who I am.  They were more than happy to give me any information I asked of them.  Probably even some they shouldn’t have.
    “Do you know how to paint, mister?” the little girl to my left asks me, scratching her nose with the nub of her wrist, the skin puckered around the place where her hand used to be. Her eyes are wide and blue, her face sweet and innocent. She looks like a small, blonde angel. 
    It hits me hard to look at her.  I might’ve had a child that looked like her if only…
    Rachel.
    My gut clenches at the thought of her.
    “No, I don’t, but I hear I’m in a good place to learn. Is that right?”
    She grins and nods her head enthusiastically.  “Ms. Evie taught me to paint with my feet,” she says, demonstrating her dexterity by waving the paintbrush held in the sure grip of her tiny toes.
    “That’s great! I can’t wait to see what you paint today.”
    “Imma paint some flowers. Yellow ones.  What are you gonna paint?”
    “Maybe I’ll paint some flowers, too.”
    Her smile is thousand watt, and it burns me all the way through, in places I try not to think about anymore.  They’re locked away. 
    Forever.
    The door in the front corner of the room opens with a squeak, and both the little girl and I turn in that direction. I see a red-tipped white cane poke through the opening, followed by speckled white ballerina slippers and shapely calves.  Slowly, Evie makes her way into the room. 
    Today, she’s wearing a pair of white shorts and a hot pink shirt with Reebok scrawled across the front, both of which are liberally splattered and smudged with paint.  Her hair is pulled back into a simple ponytail, and her eyes are hidden behind sunglasses.  Maybe it’s because of the bright ribbons of sunshine streaming through the windows to my right, or maybe she usually wears them and just didn’t during the opening, for aesthetics.  Hell if I know. I only know that she’s as beautiful today as she was last night.
    Maybe even more so.
    “Good morning, everybody,” she says in her clear voice as she makes her way to the stool at the front of the class. It’s positioned beside a blank canvas set on an easel. A table holding paints and brushes and a palette rests to the left of that.
    “Good morning, Ms. Evie,” the class says in unison.
    It’s obvious that everyone here is happy to see her.  I see it in their expressions, hear it in their voices.
    I stick out like a sore thumb, but there’s a part of me that feels like I belong here. 
    Among the wounded. 
    I glance around the room again, at the peace and joy so evident on these faces, and I realize that these kids aren’t wounded. They’re healing.
    This is where people come to heal.  
    I just wish, for my sake, forgiveness could be learned here. Or taught.
    “Do we have any new painters with us today?” Evie asks as she settles her cane against the table and perches a hip on the stool.
    No one speaks up, but the little girl beside me nudges my arm.  “Tell her you’re new,” she says in a loud whisper.
    I’d hoped to conceal my presence