Free If You Loved Me by Vanessa Grant Page A

the only thing she could contribute to the search, Chris's itinerary, with every day of the journey marked on a map, and details of estimated mileage and planned anchorages.
    Gray would find Chris for her. It was still only half light outside, but he'd organized three teenagers and a very competent-looking man into helping with radios and equipment. When the sun was higher, he would begin flying a search pattern.
    The lines on his face were deeper than they had been. His shoulders seemed broader and the muscles on his arms harder than ever. Age and experience had changed Gray, but she'd known him the instant she saw that magazine in her office.
    He thought Chris was his. She shivered as a wheel of sensation spun through her. Years ago, after that long delayed first kiss, Gray had backed away from her. She wondered now whether he'd been repelled by her obvious inexperience.
    She'd been so young, so eager to live, and that one kiss had left her desperate and reaching. No pride at all, no sense of self-preservation to stop her pursuing him when he dumped her... until the night when a girl answered his telephone.
    She didn't call after that. Now, looking back, she realized that she must have been clinically depressed that winter. No wonder her father had worried about her health and threatened to send her away somewhere there was sun.
    She began eating again then, studying because going to college was the only thing that mattered now, but she didn't stop dreaming. When she ran into Paul just after her eighteenth birthday, she accepted his invitation to dinner. Sitting in the restaurant with him, she remembered staring at him and wondering how long it would take Gray to find out she was dating Paul again.
    How could she have used Paul to get Gray back?
    It had worked, because three days later she found Gray waiting for her outside the school. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into his car. Silence, not one word spoken as he drove out of town and onto the bypass.
    "Where are we going?" she asked finally.
    "You've been out with Paul. You knew I'd hear, didn't you?"
    She nodded mutely.
    "Trying to make me jealous?"
    "Yes, Did you care?"
    "God help us both. This isn't going to work, Emma. You're going to be a surgeon. You need big cities and big hospitals. I'm going into forestry, and if I see a city in ten years once I'm through college it'll be too soon."
    "You could do other things than forestry."
    "Would you change your plans for me? Don't pretend, Emma. Don't look at me with stars in your eyes. I'm your experiment with life, and maybe there's a bit of extra spice because your father hates my guts, but you'll be a doctor if it kills you. I know what happens when I touch you... and you want it all, don't you, Emma?"
    She stared at him with her heart in her eyes. "I love you. I'll always love you."
    "No, you don't, and if you're smart you'll go home and forget me. Do you realize we'll have to sneak around like a couple of criminals? You'll get hurt. This isn't a fairy tale. There's no happy-ever-after for us. I'm not going to fall in love with you."
    God, she'd been so young. So foolish.
    The hair on the back of his hands still grew in that sparse swirl. She used to trace it with her finger, smoothing the hairs as she drew lines on the back of his hand with her fingertip until he imprisoned her fingers with his.
    Standing only inches apart, hands locked between them, his mouth would settle onto hers, heat flaring into flames as he slid his hands down to cup her close against him and she trembled with his hard passion.
    She jerked out of the past, shoved her chair back and pushed away from the table.
    Today's Gray MacKenzie lifted his head, his reddish hair tousled as he ran one hand through it.
    "What is it?"
    "Nothing," she snapped.
    He'd been all wrong for her even then, but she'd been completely unable to see it at the time. Up at the lookout, he'd pressed the key to his apartment into her hand and told her his father was out of