Seduced The Unexpected Virgin - By Emily McKay Page 0,5

Ward had opted for compact and close to the water, glad to have the excuse to put Jess and Ryan up at the hotel rather than having them stay with him. He valued his privacy too much to want them underfoot. This time of morning, only the most stalwart of beachgoers would be out. By the time he was jogging along the beach, the faintest hint of light was creeping over the horizon chasing away the night. It would be another hour before the sun rose. For now, he was alone with the sand under his pounding feet, the surf roaring in his ears, and the breeze biting his cheeks. Still, it wasn’t quite enough to block out the memory of her words.

Not the man I thought you were.

There was enough punch in that one sentence to cripple a man.

He’d disappointed a lot of people in his life. People who’d relied on him. People he’d loved. Was it really too much to ask of himself that he not disappoint this one, fiery-tempered do-gooder?

Hell, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it was merely his inconvenient and unexpected attraction to Ana Rodriguez that kept him awake. Sexual attraction came and went. It was a simple truth in his life that women were—and always had been—plentiful. There’d even been times, before Cara, that he’d indulged in the cornucopia of femininity that his career presented him with. He’d learned enough restraint since then that merely being attracted to Ana didn’t bother him.

The real problem was, some tiny part of him feared that Ana looked right through him to his very soul and saw the truth. That he really wouldn’t live up to her expectations. He never did.

He could shove aside everything else. He was good at burying his emotions these days. But he couldn’t make himself forget that.

When Cara died, he’d lost himself briefly in his grief. He’d managed to fight, tooth and nail, to get back to himself. To climb out of his despair and rebuild his life without her. But the truth was, he’d done it by following one simple principle. Keep moving.

It was like jogging. You just put one foot ahead of the other. You never give yourself permission to think. You just move. You forget the pain streaming through your muscles. Forget the blisters forming on your heels. Forget the anguish of watching a loved one being eaten alive by cancer and not being able to do a damn thing to stop it. You just move.

And if you’re fast enough and you don’t ever stop, you somehow manage to stay in front of it.

For the past three years, he’d worked eighteen-hour days getting the Cara Miller Foundation started and running smoothly. He’d contacted every wealthy or influential person he’d ever met and hit them up for support or donations. He’d found work that he was passionate about and he’d devoted himself to doing it.

He’d visited other charities. He’d studied the way they were run. He’d learned from them, revamped their models. And started over again. Never staying in any one place long enough to catch his breath. He’d worked tirelessly. He’d done it in honor of his wife’s memory. But he’d also done it because it helped him forget her.

It was a dichotomy he wasn’t sure he was ready to contemplate during a morning run on the beach. His muscles burned and his joints ached as his feet ate up mile after mile. But he still kept on jogging, slowly acknowledging that Ana was certainly right about one thing. Hannah’s Hope needed him, but it needed him for more than a quick stop off on the way to some other destination. If he was going to help Hannah’s Hope, it needed to be more than drive-by charity work.

Jogging was the one thing that cleared his head. The one thing that blocked out all the nonsense. Music had been that way for him once. Back before Cara got sick. But cancer had taken not only his wife but every musical urge he had. There’d been a time when he couldn’t go a day without playing the guitar. When songs had teased at the edges of his mind no matter what he was doing. All that was gone. Now all he had was jogging. But you couldn’t run forever. Sooner or later, you had to stop, catch your breath and turn around to go home.

So Ward slowed his steps. He stopped for a moment, braced his palms on his knees