Here And Now (American Valor 2) Read Online Free Page B

from the container. “Absolutely.”
    There was nothing healthy about his father’s girlfriend’s cooking. The woman put Paula Deen’s love for butter to shame. An old school kind of cook, Brenda poured off leftover bacon grease into an empty Crisco can she kept beneath the sink. Whenever a dish lacked a little flavor, out came the can and a little helping of meat fat was added. His arteries screamed at the thought of it, but damn if her cinnamon rolls weren’t a little slice of heaven worthy of a few months off his life.
    “You never said how you wrecked your bike.”
    “Had my back wheel clipped in the parking lot and it tossed me into the median,” Lucky said around of mouthful of cinnamon roll. “The front wheel is toast. Basically folded it in half.”
    “Someone hit you? Did they at least stop? Make sure you were okay?”
    “Oh, yeah,” Lucky said before taking another bite. “Funny thing about it . . . the driver was Rachel Dellinger.”
    “Did she know it was you? Maybe she did it on purpose,” his dad said with a chuckle.
    Lucky shook his head. “She didn’t do it on purpose. She didn’t even recognize me at first. It wasn’t intentional, it was an accident. Nothing more.”
    “If you say so.” His father was still smiling, still amused as he pulled into the driveway and threw the truck into park. “But if I were you, I’d keep an eye out. That girl definitely does not like you.”
    As Lucky opened the passenger door, he looked back at his father. “Are you gonna come in?”
    “Sorry. Can’t today. Brenda’s cousin’s daughter is getting married this afternoon, so I gotta hurry back and get ready for that.”
    “Sounds like fun.”
    “Not sure I’d go that far.” His father reached out and patted the back of Lucky’s shoulder. “Anyhow, I’ll see you later. Get some rest.”
    Lucky thanked his dad one last time for the ride home, then lifted his bike from the back of the truck. His dad backed out of the driveway, gave the horn a little beep and one last wave.
    After watching Duke drive away, he hefted his bike over his shoulder and made his way around to the back side of the house. He climbed the steps and promptly dropped the wrecked mess on the screened back porch. Hopefully, he’d be able to find a replacement wheel in town. Otherwise, he might have to head south across the river, maybe even drive the hour or so to McKinney in order to find one. Not that he was in any rush to find a replacement because his days of riding the damn thing to work were definitely done.
    Since his belly was full, he headed straight for the bathroom and turned on the shower, cranking the temperature as hot as it would go. As he stripped off his clothes, his body ached and creaked like that of an old man and in the mirror he caught sight of a dark purple bruise that had bloomed on his hip. He stripped off the wrappings and bandages covering his arm and climbed into the shower. The hot water stung his road rash like a son of a bitch, but eased the feeling in his muscles that he’d been hit by a Mack truck. He closed his eyes and turned into the hot spray and within an instant her face appeared beneath his lids. Those bright blue eyes. The full rose-colored lips. Rachel Dellinger was just as beautiful as he remembered.
    Lucky remembered his father’s teasing words, how she might have tried to run him over on purpose. While they both knew that wasn’t true, his dad was definitely right about one thing—she did not like him. That had not changed.
    But unlike the last time he saw her, he wasn’t leaving town the following week. And with them working not only at the same hospital but the same shifts in the same department, running into each other wasn’t just a possibility. It was a damn certainty.
    E VEN THOUGH SHE was bone tired, the last thing she wanted to do was rush home and face Curtis. She was just too tired, both emotionally and physically, to deal with any of his crap this morning. Besides,