Read Online Adding Up to Marriage by Karen Templeton - Free Book Online

“Tad, especially, will test you with every breath he takes.”
    â€œI’m sure. But don’t you worry, I can take anything he can dish out. And anyway, if he doesn’t test his limits—” she rose to carry her dishes to the sink “—how’s he ever gonna find out what those limits are?”
    â€œI’m thinking that’s not his decision to make,” Silas said, reasserting his control over…everything. “Which means you and I better agree on some boundaries.”
    Rinsing her dishes, she tossed him another mischief-riddled grin over her shoulder. “Like your folks set for you and your brothers?”
    â€œThey set ’em, sure. We kept barreling right past ’em.”
    Jewel grabbed a dish towel off the cabinet knob under the sink and turned, drying her hands, that damned impish smile still twinkling at him. Unnerving him. “You did hear what you just said, right?”
    â€œYou could at least humor me, you know.”
    The towel replaced, she giggled, then stuffed her hands in her hoodie’s pockets. “I’ve heard the stories. You guys were legendary, huh?”
    â€œSome of us still are,” he muttered, earning him another laugh.
    â€œSo you’ll do anything to prevent history from repeatingitself. Got it. I mean, good luck with that and all, but I’m only the hired help. Whatever rules you set, I’ll abide by ’em. Promise. Can’t promise that I won’t bend ’em every now and again, though.”
    â€œJewel—” Silas sighed. “Oh. You’re messing with me again.”
    â€œNow you’re catching on,” she said, grabbing her car keys—and the list—and heading out. “Well, let’s get going—you’ve got work to do. And for heaven’s sake, a woodworking shop is no place for a four-year-old—whatever were you thinking? ”
    Good question, Silas thought as he followed her, mesmerized by her gleaming, bouncing ponytail in the morning sun.

Chapter Four
    L ike many northern New Mexican villages, tiny Tierra Rosa blurred into the mountainous countryside beyond its borders. Silas’s adobe, clinging to the outskirts on one of the last named streets, had probably started out life as a single-room farmhouse a century or more ago, gradually expanding like a multiplying cell as successive generations added bedrooms, indoor plumbing, a working kitchen. A flagstone patio with a built-in firepit. Even so, the multiple—and not always successful—attempts at modernization only added to its kitschy charm.
    Two words Jewel never in her wildest dreams would have associated with Silas Garrett.
    Now—after installing the booster seats his parents usually kept in their SUV into Jewel’s—Silas had gone off to save the world from incorrectly added numbers and Jewel, Tad and Doughboy were in Silas’s backyard, scouting out the many holes Doughboy had thoughtfully alreadyprovided for little boys looking for a place to bury deceased hamsters, mice or—in this case—goldfish.
    â€œYou sure you’re warm enough?” she called out to Tad, who was darting from spot to spot, baggied fish in hand.
    â€œUh-huh. How ’bout over there?” The fish, mercifully oblivious, bungeed up, then dropped as Tad pointed with it. So much for respect for the dead.
    â€œLooks good to me.”
    Huddled against the chilly breeze, Jewel carefully navigated rocks and tree roots and a dozen more holes on her way over. Despite the obstacle course, it was a nice yard, big, shaded by an enormous, gold-splashed mulberry tree—just begging for a tree house, if you asked her—in one corner, the other taken over by one of those big wooden swing and play sets. Beyond the tall cedar plank fence bordering the space, live oaks and dusky, prickly piñons sparkled and swayed, teasing little boys—and young women who chafed at being fenced