Read Online The SEAL's Second Chance: An Alpha Ops Novella by Anne Calhoun - Free Book Online Page B

tone. “No, thanks. I really just want to get this over with.”
    Ian’s eyebrow rose. Jamie grabbed keys and wallet from the table in the foyer and scuffed into sneakers.
    “We’re going shopping,” she explained to Ian.
    “For the banquet?” Ian asked, his gaze shifting from Charlie to Jamie. “You finally going to break down and buy a suit?”
    “Hell, no,” Jamie said. “She needs a dress.”
    Ian’s gaze shifted back to Jamie, obviously wondering why his brother was going along on a shopping trip for a dress for the girls’ basketball coach, obviously drawing conclusions Charlie didn’t want him drawing.
    “Shut up, Ian,” Jamie advised.
    “I didn’t say a word.”
    “I can hear you thinking,” Jamie said as he finished lacing his sneakers. “Tell Mom not to hold dinner for me.”
    “What makes you think I’ll be around for dinner?”
    “Like you’re going to bake a frozen pizza rather than eat Mom’s pot roast,” Jamie scoffed. “Not to mention you’ve got all those D&D grids to go through.”
    “I can’t believe I kept all those.”
    “And the die. And the figures.” Jamie coughed “geek” under his breath, and got a swat to the back of the head for his efforts.
    “Have fun,” Ian said.
    Charlie had been slowly backing away during this exchange. Jamie walked around to the other side of her car and waited while she clicked open the locks. “Did you have any trouble finding the house?”
    “Number one, everyone knows which house was owned by the founder of North Hills Railway. Number two, everyone knows where the mayor lives. Number three, your brother is a lieutenant with the police department and there was an unmarked police car sitting outside the house.”
    Jamie huffed out a laugh as he buckled his seat belt, then looked right at her. Suddenly catapulted back to the morning, she remembered that odd moment when her alarm went off. She’d been dreaming all right, dreaming of Jamie under the cottonwood tree, hot and hard inside her, hot and hard against her. It was so real, so vivid, like the park and the basketball court were the only places they existed, her own bedroom looked unfamiliar. It didn’t happen often anymore; a life on the road, waking up in hotel rooms and friends’ apartments all over Europe, taught her brain to remember where she was and supply that information as she woke up. One night with Jamie disoriented her that easily.
    “Ready when you are,” he said.
    She tried to put the car in reverse, remembered she hadn’t started it, turned the key, then successfully reversed out of the driveway. Jamie had his fingers tucked into the weather stripping at the top of the window. His other hand rested casually on his thigh.
    Apparently things weren’t going to be any different because they’d slept together.
    “What were you two up to?” she asked.
    “Mom wants us to clean out the eaves,” he answered. “She kept everything from our childhood. Every paper, every art project, every toy and game and book we ever owned is shoved into the eaves of that house. She decided, since I’m home for a month, that Ian could take some time off and we’d go through it all.”
    “But she was the one who kept it,” Charlie said, trying to wrap her mind around a mother who cherished kindergarten art projects and role-playing fantasy games and merge with traffic heading downtown at the same time.
    “Rule number one in the Hawthorn house is don’t argue with Mom.”
    “What’s rule number two?”
    “There is no rule number two,” Jamie said, stone cold serious.
    “I met her a few weeks ago, when the kids started planning the banquet,” Charlie offered. “She seemed nice.”
    “She’s very nice. She absorbed all of the good stuff from marrying a Marine turned cop, and brought her own brand of ladylike to it. Where are we headed?”
    “NoDo. There’s a couple of boutiques there I’ve had good luck with in the past.” Charlie turned onto the brick-paved streets