From Temptation to Twins by Barbara Dunlop

Author:Barbara Dunlop
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin Desire
Published: 2017-09-05T04:00:00+00:00

Seven

Jules had practiced her lie over and over on the short taxi ride from the Portland airport to her father’s town house. He was obviously baffled when he opened the door to find her on the porch.

“I had a stopover,” she said, taking Caleb’s advice and keeping the explanation short. “I thought I’d come by and say hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sounded funny on the phone.”

“It was an unsettling night.” She silently acknowledged to herself that it had been unsettling in far more ways than one. “Can I come in?”

“What kind of question is that?” He frowned as he stepped out of the way.

She realized it had been too much to expect that he’d be in a good mood. “I have an hour or so, and I thought we could talk.”

“About what?”

“I’ve got some pictures of the construction.” She opened her purse to retrieve her phone.

He waved her away as he closed the door behind them. “I don’t want to see them.”

“We’ve got a carpenter helping us. He’s really good, and his prices are reasonable.”

“You should come home. You should both come home, find real jobs, give up that run-down, ramshackle restaurant. There are a lot of nice men in Portland.”

Jules mind went involuntarily to Caleb, and she quickly banished the picture.

“You know we want to do this, Dad. We think we can make it work, and we promised Grandpa.”

“You should never have made that promise to your grandfather. And he should never have asked you. I should contest the will.”

“You’re not going to contest the will.”

Although her father would have loved nothing better than to sell the land under the Crab Shack as well as her grandfather’s house, no court in the country would overturn the will, and he knew it.

“You’re going to lose all your money.”

Jules took a seat in the compact living room. “We told you, we’re willing to take that chance.”

“You dragged your little sister along on this misadventure.”

Jules clenched her purse on her lap. “Melissa is perfectly capable of making up her own mind.”

“She follows you. She always has.”

“But she argues with me when she doesn’t agree.”

Roland scoffed. “Don’t give me that. You know you’re the one in charge.”

“I’m not—” Jules stopped herself, realizing the futility of going around and around on the issue.

“I wanted you to know I was fine, that we’re doing fine. I thought you might be worried.”

“When I think of the two of you next door to that family,” he spat.

“It’s only Caleb now. Kedrick moved to Arizona.”

Her father pounced. “How do you know that?”

She realized she’d made a mistake. “It’s a small neighborhood.”

Roland’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a lot of detail.”

“It’s not.”

“How did you hear so much about that family?”

“We’ve run into Caleb and a few of the other neighbors.” She tried to move the conversation past the Watfords. “Matt Emerson owns the marina now and lives in the house above. It’s really grown. And TJ Bauer bought the O’Hara’s place and rebuilt. Ours is the only original house left.”

“The land is worth a fortune by now.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.