Read Online Goes down easy: Roped into romance by Alison Kent - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alison Kent
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town, Jack?”
“Nowhere yet. I just got here this morning. Uh, yesterday morning.”
“Well, the utility room’s not much, but you’re welcome to it. If Perry wasn’t using her old bedroom upstairs, I’d offer you that.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find a place—”
“You could stay at mine,” Perry put in beforethinking about what she was saying. Having Jack out of temptation’s reach felt so much safer than having him here.
“That would be the perfect solution. You could keep an eye on Perry’s place while she keeps an eye on me.” Fighting a sly smile, Della reached over, patted then squeezed his forearm.
But before either Perry or Jack could reply, the sly smile disappeared. Della’s hand began to shake. And the look that came over her face couldn’t be described as anything but abject horror.
“Oh, Jack. I’m sorry. So very sorry. No man should ever suffer so.”
J ACK’S VISIT WITH Dawn Taylor had been a bust. The woman had fit him in between two phone calls while standing behind her journalistic integrity and insistence on protecting her sources.
He’d left after fifteen minutes of working for nothing, figuring he’d do better online starting with the Times-Picayune archives. All he needed was a Wi-Fi connection for his laptop. Then again, he could deal with dial-up if that was all he’d have at Perry’s.
Parking his SUV in the space behind her townhouse, he tried not to think about what Della Brazille had seen in her kitchen when squeezing his arm. Or what she thought she’d seen, because he had a hard time believing she’d seen anything at all. Especially not the truth.
He didn’t talk to anyone about his tour of duty. About being recruited into special ops and assigned toa detachment based on psyche tests and stamina and weapons proficiency, when in reality he’d been twenty-two years old and still struggling with the rift in his family caused by his decision to join the Corps.
There was nothing about him exceptional enough to have caught anyone’s eye. He should’ve been able to serve his four years and go home, but he’d stayed for twelve. He’d seen things he didn’t want to talk about, done things he didn’t want anyone to know. Lived through things no one ever should.
Yet with no more than the touch of her hand to his arm, Della Brazille had divined everything…unless what she’d seen had been the prelude to his long military stint. The choice his father had given him that hadn’t been a choice, but an ultimatum he’d lacked the maturity to face.
His sister’s battle with Batten disease, a fatal, inherited disorder of the nervous system, had taken her and his mother to Johns Hopkins and Baltimore during his senior year. His father had kept an apartment in Austin, though he’d spent only a night or two there each week. That left Jack, at seventeen, virtually on his own.
The agreement was that he’d rejoin the family after graduation and attend college in the northeast. It didn’t matter that he’d been accepted at UT, or that he’d counted on being a longhorn since the first time he’d seen Bevo, the school’s mascot, as a kid. The family needed to be together, his father said. All of them. For his sister’s sake.
When the time had come for him to move, Jack had balked. His group of friends in Austin—the deck—hadbeen the only family he’d known for the twelve months prior. They’d been the family he’d counted on while his parents devoted one-hundred-and-ten percent of their time to his sister.
They had, in fact, shown him the truth of what family was all about. He’d fit in. He’d played a part. He’d eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the Schneiders, Randy’s family. He’d gone skiing over Christmas vacation with Ben and the rest of the Tannens. All of them—Jack, Ben, Randy, Quentin and Heidi—had spent spring break at South Padre Island. And they’d kept each other out of trouble and on the straight and narrow throughout
“Nowhere yet. I just got here this morning. Uh, yesterday morning.”
“Well, the utility room’s not much, but you’re welcome to it. If Perry wasn’t using her old bedroom upstairs, I’d offer you that.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find a place—”
“You could stay at mine,” Perry put in beforethinking about what she was saying. Having Jack out of temptation’s reach felt so much safer than having him here.
“That would be the perfect solution. You could keep an eye on Perry’s place while she keeps an eye on me.” Fighting a sly smile, Della reached over, patted then squeezed his forearm.
But before either Perry or Jack could reply, the sly smile disappeared. Della’s hand began to shake. And the look that came over her face couldn’t be described as anything but abject horror.
“Oh, Jack. I’m sorry. So very sorry. No man should ever suffer so.”
J ACK’S VISIT WITH Dawn Taylor had been a bust. The woman had fit him in between two phone calls while standing behind her journalistic integrity and insistence on protecting her sources.
He’d left after fifteen minutes of working for nothing, figuring he’d do better online starting with the Times-Picayune archives. All he needed was a Wi-Fi connection for his laptop. Then again, he could deal with dial-up if that was all he’d have at Perry’s.
Parking his SUV in the space behind her townhouse, he tried not to think about what Della Brazille had seen in her kitchen when squeezing his arm. Or what she thought she’d seen, because he had a hard time believing she’d seen anything at all. Especially not the truth.
He didn’t talk to anyone about his tour of duty. About being recruited into special ops and assigned toa detachment based on psyche tests and stamina and weapons proficiency, when in reality he’d been twenty-two years old and still struggling with the rift in his family caused by his decision to join the Corps.
There was nothing about him exceptional enough to have caught anyone’s eye. He should’ve been able to serve his four years and go home, but he’d stayed for twelve. He’d seen things he didn’t want to talk about, done things he didn’t want anyone to know. Lived through things no one ever should.
Yet with no more than the touch of her hand to his arm, Della Brazille had divined everything…unless what she’d seen had been the prelude to his long military stint. The choice his father had given him that hadn’t been a choice, but an ultimatum he’d lacked the maturity to face.
His sister’s battle with Batten disease, a fatal, inherited disorder of the nervous system, had taken her and his mother to Johns Hopkins and Baltimore during his senior year. His father had kept an apartment in Austin, though he’d spent only a night or two there each week. That left Jack, at seventeen, virtually on his own.
The agreement was that he’d rejoin the family after graduation and attend college in the northeast. It didn’t matter that he’d been accepted at UT, or that he’d counted on being a longhorn since the first time he’d seen Bevo, the school’s mascot, as a kid. The family needed to be together, his father said. All of them. For his sister’s sake.
When the time had come for him to move, Jack had balked. His group of friends in Austin—the deck—hadbeen the only family he’d known for the twelve months prior. They’d been the family he’d counted on while his parents devoted one-hundred-and-ten percent of their time to his sister.
They had, in fact, shown him the truth of what family was all about. He’d fit in. He’d played a part. He’d eaten Thanksgiving dinner with the Schneiders, Randy’s family. He’d gone skiing over Christmas vacation with Ben and the rest of the Tannens. All of them—Jack, Ben, Randy, Quentin and Heidi—had spent spring break at South Padre Island. And they’d kept each other out of trouble and on the straight and narrow throughout
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