Read Online The Rocky Road to Romance by Janet Evanovich - Free Book Online

except picnic. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll take my food back to the car.”
    Steve gave Bob a bag full of burgers and a vanilla milk shake. “Don’t eat the carton,” he told the dog. “Last time you ate the carton, and it made you sick.”
    Daisy took some fried chicken and fruit salad. “This is lovely. You’re a good person.”
    â€œI was hoping you’d notice.”
    She smiled at him. He had ulterior motives. How nice.
    â€œI have some big news,” he said. “I bought a house last night.” He took a napkin and wiped milk shake off Bob’s face fur. “It’s a terrific house. It has a fenced-in backyard for Bob and little print wallpaper in the dining room. Actually, I don’t know if I like the wallpaper, but the Realtor said it was Williamsburg and very classy. Maybe you could take a look at it and let me know what you think. I’m not much of a judge when it comes to wallpaper.” And while she was there she could also look at the bedrooms—especiallythe one with his big king-size bed.
    Bob had finished his burgers and was inching his way over to the chicken.
    â€œYou can’t have chicken,” Steve told him. “It has bones in it, and you’re not supposed to have bones raw or cooked.” Steve dumped a glob of potato salad on a paper plate, added a deviled egg and a biscuit, and fed it to Bob. “Save some room for dessert,” he told him. “I bought a cheesecake.”
    Daisy slanted a look at Bob. “He always eats like this? What did he eat for breakfast?”
    â€œWe didn’t have much time this morning. We were up late last night packing. We stopped on the way in to work and got coffee and doughnuts.”
    â€œYou fed him coffee and doughnuts for breakfast?”
    â€œI made sure the coffee was cool. Yesterday was better. Yesterday we had orange juice and eggs and whole wheat toast.”
    â€œDoesn’t he ever eat dog food?”
    â€œI bought some for him, but he didn’t like it.”
    Daisy ate half of a melon ball. “You ever have a dog when you were a kid?”
    He shook his head. “Nope. I never had a pet of any kind until Bob. We lived in a high-rise in Houston for most of my childhood. Very posh. My dad and my mom do lots of traveling. They were never very interested in the hearth-and-home stuff. Home was a place to entertain business associates.”
    â€œYou probably had servants.”
    â€œMmmm.” He gnawed on a chicken leg and tossed it into the cardboard bucket. He glanced at Daisy and thought she looked a little wistful.
    â€œMust have been nice.”
    He shrugged. “It was right for my mom and dad. They both came from very poor beginnings. When the oil money started coming in they went uptown. My grandfather Crow was the only member of the family who stayed on the land. I spent a summer with him once and hated it. I must have been nine or ten. I look back on it now and think it might have been the best summer I ever had.”
    Daisy curled her legs under her and pickedat a biscuit. “What made you change your mind after all those years?”
    â€œI don’t know. Gut feeling. My grandfather Crow lived on a flat piece of cracked red dirt. The house was a small wooden thing patched together with pieces of jerry can and chinked with sun-dried mud. He swept the inside with a broom. He didn’t have a vacuum cleaner. He had electricity but only used it in the winter to run the heater. No electric lights. He said they made the life cycle unnatural. He said when the sun went down a body was supposed to look at the stars for a while and go to sleep. And if you couldn’t fall asleep right off, you hadn’t worked hard enough that day.”
    His grin was lopsided, self-deprecating. “This philosophy went over big with a ten-year-old who’d never known a day without servants. I didn’t know how to pour my own