Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) - By Elizabeth Ruston Page 0,115
hips into his and angled her knee over his leg. It was how they liked to sleep sometimes, and Sarah realized that was exactly what was happening: Joe was falling back asleep.
She poked him. “Joe.”
“Hm?”
“So what do you think?”
“I think you’re right.”
“You do?”
“Sure.”
She poked him again.
He peeked open one eye and smiled. “What?”
“Are you just yessing me so I’ll let you go back to sleep?”
“No. I’m with you, Sarah. Here, there, anywhere.”
“But you think it’s a good idea, right? That we should start our own firm?”
“I think it’s a great idea. Now shhh. I’m with my girlfriend.”
Sarah waited a minute more, then poked him again.
This time Joe yanked her underneath him and straddled her from above as he smothered her laughter with a kiss.
“What is it, Henley?” he growled.
“I want to marry you.”
“Okay.”
“I want to be your business partner.”
“Okay.”
“So we have a deal?” She held out her hand.
“The law firm and marriage of Burke and Henley,” he said, shaking her hand. “Deal.”
“Henley and Burke,” she corrected him.
“Burke is first alphabetically,” Joe pointed out. “It’ll show up sooner on lists.”
“Really, Eight? Because I think Henley and Burke sounds better.”
“Oh, Seven, that’s a low blow.”
Sarah laughed again. “All right, tell you what—why don’t we flip for it? One coin, and we go with whatever it says. No arguments from either of us.”
Joe leaned over and kissed her. “You’re a tough one, Henley.”
“I know.”
“Tough and sexy and beautiful.”
“Why, thank you.”
“And smart,” Joe added. “Let’s not forget that.”
“Thank you. Same to you.” Sarah wrapped her legs around his waist and made him kiss her some more.
Then she let him go and leapt out of bed and went in search of a coin.
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COMING SOON: Laws of Attraction #2
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Elizabeth Ruston is a former trial attorney, entrepreneur, community college instructor, yoga instructor, martial artist, and outdoor adventurer. She also writes young adult fiction as Robin Brande. You can find out more about current and upcoming titles at http://www.elizabethruston.com.
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And now, please enjoy an excerpt from FREEFALL by Elizabeth Ruston:
One
It was her last column for Outdoor Adventure.
Their last column.
Eliza had waited three months until she could write it, could bear to look at the picture of him taken on that last day—the picture she knew she’d have to let them print at the top of the page. Because their columns always came with a picture.
She could have waited longer—people understood, no one was pushing her—but she wanted to write it while she was still angry at him, because those had always been their funniest columns, those he said-she said renditions of some disastrous adventure they’d both just barely survived.
This one wasn’t funny at all.
Is it better to die doing what you love, or to be more careful so you can stay alive and keep doing it? Jamey and I had those fights all the time—when he’d go diving with sharks in baited water. Or backpacking alone, deep in grizzly country during a salmon run, no contact with the outside world until a plane was scheduled to pick him up a week or ten days later. Or climbing in a country where even the toddlers carried guns.
Or that time we were hiking up Conundrum Pass in Colorado, and a freak storm blew in early in the morning, trapping us high on an exposed ridge above 13,000 feet. The hail beat down on us as lightning flashed all around. A bolt slammed the ridge right above me, blinding me for a moment with light I didn’t know could be that white.
And what did Jamey do? He pulled out his camera. He stood on that ridge with electricity raining down on top of us and he pulled out his damn camera.
“What are you doing?” I screamed as I topped the hill and prepared to keep running down the other side.
“It’s so beautiful!” he shouted back, aiming at the sky.
“You’re going to die, you a**hole!” I’m not proud to say I shouted, and as I tore down the hill desperate for the safety of treeline, it went through my head that those would be my last words to my husband, and some time a few hours later, when the storm passed, I’d have to trudge my way back up that mountain to retrieve his lifeless body. I actually started working out how I was going to carry him down. It kept my mind occupied and pushed out the terror of being struck by lightning myself. Cursing helped, too, and I had an awful lot to curse about with a husband who was such a reckless idiot.
But of course he didn’t die. Because Jamey was incredibly lucky that way. Everyone knew it—it’s what made being with him and reading about all his exploits in the wilderness so exciting.
But this time he is dead. From doing something so easy, something he’d done twenty, forty, fifty times before. Climbing up one of our local pitches, perfect blue-sky day, no wind, no weather, just Jamey and his friends out for a leisurely afternoon. He was supposed to be home by five. We were going to an early movie.
But it doesn’t matter how lucky or handsome or funny or charming or well-loved—fiercely-loved—you are, you can still die when you’re 29 and leave behind a bewildered, pissed off wife who doesn’t know how to be a widow any more than she knew how not to fall in love with the likes of you, Jamey Shepherd, from the first time I saw you in our college English class 11 years ago. You hooked me in the first time you spoke, and even though I was a lifelong chicken you somehow turned me into an adventurer, into a partner who could do half the crazy things you did, and I know if we’d have had time to start that family we talked about, our children would have been more like you than like me, because everyone always wanted to be you.
But now that’s over and that’s it, and all the amazing, daring, hilarious things you would have done and written about for all of us to see will never happen. Because of a stupid anchor bolt.
Wasn’t that a history lesson? “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the battle was lost . . .” Because little details matter. Sometimes little details are all that matter.
The point is, Jamey, you robbed us. You went out one day with just a kiss at the door, and you promised to come back and you didn’t. You took that joyous, carefree life of yours and played with one too many risks. And now you’re never coming back, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
We should all be monumentally pissed.
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You can buy FREEFALL here.
Table of Contents
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Excerpt from FREEFALL by Elizabeth Ruston:
Table of Contents
Copyright
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Twenty-nine
Thirty
Thirty-one
Thirty-two
Thirty-three
Thirty-four
Thirty-five
Thirty-six
Thirty-seven
Thirty-eight
Thirty-nine
Forty
Forty-one
Forty-two
Forty-three
Forty-four
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Excerpt from FREEFALL by Elizabeth Ruston: