Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series) Read Online Free

flagging assurance, she reminded herself how much he loved seeing her in his shirts. He’d said so dozens of times, proved it dozens of times.
    She took a deep breath, drew herself up on her knees. “I can think of things I want more than the Tribune ,” she said, running her index finger along his bare forearm.
    Ray sloshed the tea he was pouring. With a muffled oath, he put the teapot down and snatched the newspaper up before it could become totally saturated. Grace shrank back as he shook droplets off the newspaper.
    “Here,” he said gruffly, thrusting the paper at her while he mopped the tea up with a napkin. “Front page, bottom right.”
    Her face burning, she took the paper, more as a physical shield to hide her humiliation than anything else, but the photo at the bottom of the page drew her eye. The sight of her crumpled Mustang, its roof peeled back grotesquely, struck her hard. Without warning, her mind lurched backward.
    She was in her car, hurtling through the night, the road black, unwinding in her headlights like a shiny snake. Her hands gripped the wheel, and her heart was heavy with misery. Oncoming cars, their headlights brilliant blobs through the prism of her tears. Tires catching the graveled shoulder. That sick feeling when she started to lose it. Then ... nothing.
    “You okay?”
    Grace lifted a hand to her head.
    “It’s not like you didn’t expect this, right?” Ray swiped the bottom of her teacup with a cloth napkin and handed it to her. She accepted it automatically. “It’s one thing for your own paper to give the story a pass, but you had to know this other rag would run with it.”
    She looked up at him, seeing black road, headlights. “My accident‌—‌what time was it?”
    His gaze slid away. “Ten thirty. Ten forty-five.”
    Almost eleven o’clock! That couldn’t be right. She’d been coming home from an interview with the horse guy. Garnet Soles.
    The idea seemed somehow both right and wrong. She’d started home from that interview well before five o’clock. It just didn’t add up. And what was she doing out that late?
    “Ray, where was I going?”
    He lifted his gaze to meet hers, his expression guarded. “I don’t know.”
    She searched his face for long moments. He spoke the truth, she decided at last. But he also lied. If he didn’t know where she was going, he most certainly knew why .
    “I wasn’t coming back from the horse interview.”
    She swallowed when he shook his head.
    “I’ve forgotten something important, haven’t I?”
    He nodded.
    “That’s why Dr. Greenfield kept asking me those questions.”
    “Yes.”
    Her stomach took a plunge. That’s why Ray had pored over the photo albums with her. Testing her memory, not reminiscing.
    Ask him. Ask him why you were flying down that rain-wet highway after dark.
    No! Whatever it was, she wasn’t ready to hear it.
    Something scalded her thigh. She looked down to find she’d spilled most of her tea on herself.
    Ray swore, taking the china cup from her trembling hands.
    “Your best shirt,” she said.
    He cursed. “It’s my fault.”
    “It’s the one I bought you for your birthday last year.”
    “Forget the shirt.” He strode to the bathroom. She heard the splash of water, then he was back, wet cloth in hand.
    “Egyptian cotton.” She examined the brown splotch. She’d bought it at a men’s luxury store, spending the better part of a paycheck on it. Ray appreciated a really fine shirt.
    “Here, put this on your thigh.”
    Suddenly, it seemed imperative that she save the shirt. If she didn’t deal with the stain immediately, it would set, and she couldn’t use bleach on the fine fibers. “I’ll wash it now.”
    Her fingers fumbled with the buttons, but he brushed her hands away.
    “Forget the shirt, dammit. Just lie down and let me put this cold cloth on that burn.”
    She lay back. He was right; it was just a shirt.
    Ray perched beside her on the edge of the bed and gently applied the