Beginning with You Read Online Free Page B

table with four men sitting around it. “Your father?”
    Returning his attention to her, Jim nodded. He put his hands on his narrow hips. “Yeah. He’s the tough old Irishman with the red beard sitting over there. Dad’s seventy-one and doing the work of a forty-five-year-old man.”
    A smile edged Rook’s lips. No, he wasn’t lying. She saw the sudden warmth in Barton’s eyes and heard the underlying pride in his voice. “There are days I get up feeling like twenty-five going on eighty.”
    Good, she was relaxing. “Is this one of those days?”
    Rook sipped her water. She ought to invite him to sit down. But if she did that, he’d take it the wrong way. Jim Barton was like a summer cold’—hard to get rid of. “I look that bad, huh?”
    Shaking his head, Jim met her small, hesitant smile. Her entire faced eased when her lips lifted at the corners. “Actually, considering the hell I put you through yesterday afternoon, you look pretty good.” Better than that, but Jim sensed that if he said she was beautiful, she’d consider it a line and ask him to leave.
    Leaning back, Rook realized that he might be inquiring about her health for insurance reasons and not stalking her. “I feel fine. No neck pain or backaches from yesterday.”
    “Great. Mind if I sit down for a moment?” He gave her a hopeful look.
    “Well—I…” How could she say no to that innocent look on his face?
    “Look, let me make up for yesterday’s crash. You’re going to live here in Port Angeles. At least let me buy you breakfast, and then we’ll call it even.” He slid into the booth opposite her before she could open her mouth to ask him to leave.
    Rook stared at him. “Mr. Barton—”
    “Call me Jim. And I’ve been wondering what your first name is.” He knew he had her buffaloed by the confusion on her face. “Are you a Jennifer, I wonder? Maybe a Susan or Katherine?”
    The waitress came over. Helpless beneath Barton’s dazzling Irish blarney, she ordered a breakfast of orange juice, toast and coffee.
    “That’s all?” Jim demanded.
    Rook gave him a flat look of annoyance. “I’m not a timber truck driver, Mr. Barton.”
    Jim shrugged and nodded to the waitress. “Millie, just bring me a cup of coffee, please.”
    “Sure thing, Jim.” And the waitress left.
    “You know,” he continued conversationally, “I think you ought to eat a little more. Sort of skinny, aren’t you?”
    Meeting his friendly blue gaze, Rook gritted out, “I like myself just the way I am.”
    Damn! She’d taken that the wrong way. Sure enough, Jim saw her lean back, that same distrust coming back to those large gray eyes of hers. “Well, what I meant was—”
    “Save it, Mr. Barton. I know where you’re coming from and where you want to go.”
    “What’s your first name?” he asked quietly, refusing to be drawn into her assessment of him.
    “Rook.”
    “Rook?”
    “That’s right. Rook.” She sat there smiling to herself. For once, she had him on the defensive.
    He lifted his eyebrows. “That’s quite a name.”
    “I like it. That’s all that counts.”
    “I imagine there were a few kids who might have made fun of it when you were growing up.”
    His insight was startling, unexpected. Rook moved nervously around in the booth, her appetite completely gone. “A few.”
    Jim grinned. “Let’s see…a rook is a crow.”
    “I’ve eaten some now and then. Haven’t you?”
    His smile broadened, and so did hers. When she relaxed and dropped those walls, she was like blinding sunlight. Jim liked her self-deprecating sense of humor. “Oh, yeah. Like yesterday. I ate a plateful.”
    “At least you aren’t too stuck on your ego to admit that much.” Chuckling, Rook met and held his warm gaze. A delicious sense of protection overwhelmed her in those fleeting seconds. It was a feeling she’d never experienced around a man before. And, just as quickly, Rook shielded herself from it.
    Spreading out his long legs on either