Inherited Threat by Jane M. Choate

Author:Jane M. Choate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-04-03T15:17:40+00:00

* * *

After the day he and Laurel had put in, the last thing Mace had wanted to do was go to dinner tonight. He’d longed for a quiet night with a good book, a bowl of ice cream and maybe some jazz playing in the background. Now that he was here, though, he was glad he’d agreed.

Shelley and Caleb’s home was beautiful, not because of the appointments or furnishings but because of the love that filled the space. He liked the bits and pieces of everyday living that were strewn about. He liked that Shelley made no attempt to apologize for the clutter. He liked the small touches that said this was a home, not a showplace.

When Caleb excused himself to start the steaks, Mace wandered back to where Laurel and Shelley sat and unabashedly listened to them talk about the mother who had never been a mother.

He knew Shelley and Jake’s story, and now he was learning more of Laurel’s. His lips stitched closed in anger at the woman who had essentially abandoned her children, leaving them to fend on their own. Even though it had been Laurel who’d done the leaving, she’d done so out of self-preservation.

His childhood hadn’t been perfect, but at least he’d known that his parents loved him. Shelley and Jake had had each other, but Laurel had had no one. She’d made something of herself and had done it on her own. From what he could see, she had done a fine job.

Caleb reappeared, took a look at Mace and said, “Listen to them. They sound like they grew up with each other.”

Mace had met Caleb Judd only a few years ago but had quickly come to regard him as a good friend.

“I never understood how hard it must have been on Jake and Shelley and now Laurel with the mother they had.”

Caleb clenched his hand, unclenched it and clenched it again. “Yeah. Shelley still keeps parts of her childhood from me. She thinks it’ll make me sad. What it mostly does is make me angry. Sometimes I’ll hear her crying in her sleep. I’ll wake her and ask her what’s wrong. She never says much, but I can see the pain in her eyes. I’ve never felt more helpless.”

Mace had entertained the same feelings. “Why would a woman who clearly disliked her children keep them for as long as she did? Why not give them up to the state where they might be raised in foster homes or even put up for adoption? Why not give them the opportunity to be loved?”

“Selfishness,” Caleb answered promptly. “She didn’t want them, but she didn’t want anyone else to have them either. And then there’s the money thing.”

It made a horrible kind of sense. Laurel was too smart not to have known. What must it have done to a young girl to know that the only reason her mother kept her around was for money?

Caleb took out his cell. “Mind if I turn on the news for a minute?”

“Not at all.

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