Read Online Heart on a Shoestring by Marilyn Grey - Free Book Online Page A

wanted to fix. And once I got the prize or realized the person wasn’t fixable, I left, looking for a new challenge or project. As much as I hate to admit, perhaps everyone had been more right about me than my very self. Derek was a challenge. And a project, at least it seemed so. Yet, I didn’t find myself drawn to him in the same way. I didn’t feel like a heroine. He didn’t feel like a hero. We felt like . . . Turtle and Lizzy. Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.
    I hummed the melody and waited for Derek to recognize it. When he didn’t say anything I asked him to name the tune.
    “Not sure,” he said, out of breath as he pulled the wisteria vines and walked through the entrance.
    “You don’t know Pink Floyd?” I said.
    “I’ve heard them.”
    “Not a fan?”
    “I’m more of a Charles Mingus kinda guy.”
    “Who’s that?”
    He grabbed his bag and handed me crackers and cheese.
    I took a handful and said, “So, can you tell me what happened in your past that’s so bad?”
    He closed his eyes, then looked behind me, reflecting. “You’re the only person I’ve wanted to spill my heart to.”
    I smiled inside. Maybe my face did too.
    “Come with me,” he said. “I want to show you something.”
    We walked through thorn bushes, over fallen branches, and under the beams of sunlight sword fighting in the trees.
    Something bit my foot. I looked down and screamed. Derek poked a stick into the grass and laughed.
    “Something just bit me.” I held my ankle as it tingled with pain. “I think I’m poisoned.”
    “You’re not poisoned.” He laughed again.
    “My entire foot is in pain. Like all hot and tingly.” I winced. “We have to go. Now.”
    He held my shoulder. “It’s burn hazel, Lizzy. Just a plant. When you touch it your skin feels burned.”
    I knelt and looked at my foot. “It really hurts.”
    “Let’s walk a few steps further. We’re almost there and I know of something that may help.”
    “Thanks, Turtle.”
    A few seconds later we walked into a clearing. No trees. Only grass the color of Granny Smith apples standing between us and a cliff. Or maybe an embankment. I couldn’t tell.
    “Thought you were afraid of heights?” I elbowed him as we walked.
    He nudged me back. “It’s not as high as it looks.”
    We stood at the edge and peered over. Thousands and thousands, and I mean thousands, of wild flowers. Mostly red from what I could tell. Flecks of deep burgundy amidst a sea of green, floating in the breeze like little boats captured by the golden lines of the sun. I gasped. Derek stood, hands in his pockets, back straight, shoulders high, and grinned. Like a boy on his papa’s lap. I looked around, then back to him.
    His eyes locked with mine and my heart rate picked up. I turned and stood in front of him, the red boats behind me. His deep, mysterious, slightly squinted eyes in front of me. He took my hands and shifted his weight to his left leg. The sunset warmed his brown hair, creating auburn highlights even in his newly grown facial hair. My eyes stumbled over his lips, down his neck, chest, then to his hands, tightly locked with mine. 
    My pulse, hasty with passion, surged through my veins. There. That feeling again. The one where I can no longer feel my legs and every part of me wants to fall into him. Melt into him. Be part of him.
    He ran his hands up my arms, to my shoulders, and stopped at my neck. My knees. They couldn’t bear it. I closed my eyes and gently held his arms as he moved a hand up my neck. I could no longer feel the burns from that plant. Tingly pricks of passion took over. His thumb stopped by my temple and his palm rested below my ear, cradling my head with a fragile strength. I opened my eyes and swept his gaze into me.
    He leaned toward me, then hesitated. Unsure of what a kiss would do to our budding friendship, just like me. Would it blossom or destroy it altogether? Neither of us wanted a broken heart.
    I waited.
    He waited. 
    The