You're Still the One by Rachel Harris Page A

quiet kid who blushed too much and darted out of the room whenever he smiled at her. It’d been a few years, but people talked, and from what he’d heard, she was still about the same. A nice but awkward chip off the old emotionless block.
    What kind of trouble could a girl like that possibly get into?
    “Consider it done.” Charlie knew, without the man saying so, how important this was. Stone had always held Arabella on a pedestal, especially after her mother died, and if his boss had a heart beneath the steel, she was it. Beyond the soft-core coercion, trusting Charlie with her safety was a big deal. “Anything else I should know?”
    Stone raised his eyes. “Just one detail. She can’t know how you got the job, or that I was ever involved with Strange Wheel. It’d break her heart to learn I had anything to do with her getting that internship.”
    The request, while understandable, made Charlie uneasy. Deceit wasn’t his thing; growing up in his overstuffed family, lying only led to trouble. You inevitably left something out, or told a sibling one lie too many, and it all came crashing around you. But, in this case, he guessed a lie of omission couldn’t do much harm. It was to protect the girl, raise her self-esteem. If memory served correctly, she could use a dash of that.
    “Your secret is safe with me,” he replied, and the two men shook again.
    Satisfied, Stone left to schmooze with more big shots, and Charlie raised his bottle in a silent toast to new adventures. This night had certainly turned out better than he’d anticipated.

Chapter Four
    Home sweet home. Two weeks after her exciting night at Country Roads, Arabella dropped her bags in her motel room and released an excited noise from her mouth. It was more than a laugh, more than a giddy squeal. It was the sound of freedom.
    Everything about this town was perfect. The air held a certain energy, the people were incredibly friendly, and during the ride over she’d spotted a jazz quartet playing on the corner two blocks away. New Orleans had music in its blood, every bit as much as Nashville, only here no one knew who she was.
    Ella joined her bags on the mattress, falling back freestyle and laughing aloud as she bounced. The floral print on the bedspread was hideous, the walls a strange mustard color, and the carpet in the hallway had definitely seen better days. But it was hers, hers until she found an apartment, anyway, and she’d chosen it on her own.
    Her father expected her to be staying in some fancy place off Canal Street or in the Garden District, but that wasn’t her. That was the prim façade, the image. This place was real . It was low-key. She could throw herself across the mattress and watch TV stark naked if she wanted to—not that she ever would, or that she couldn’t in the pricier hotels, but they’d always felt stifling. Here she could breathe.
    Her cell phone buzzed on the dresser and Arabella bounded off the bed to retrieve it. “Let me guess, you miss me already?” she said in lieu of hello, not bothering to check who was calling.
    “ Yes .” Lana tacked on a long-suffering sigh for dramatic effect, and Ella rolled her eyes at the theatrics. “I came home today and there were no fresh baked cookies waiting for me. No lavender lemonade or fresh squeezed orange juice, either. Ella, I had to drink Snapple from a bottle and rip open a carton of Oreos. Do you see what you’re doing to me?”
    Arabella laughed. “My sincere apologies for leaving you snackless, prosecutor. Good to know you only love me for my cooking.”
    “Future prosecutor,” she corrected, “and not only for your cooking. I also love your magical ways with the laundry.”
    That was her, domestic goddess extraordinaire. She couldn’t help it. Taking care of people made her happy, and even though her father hired people to do such things around the house, Arabella had always pitched in alongside them, eager to help. It made her feel closer to her