0373659458 (R)

0373659458 (R) by Karen Templeton

Book: 0373659458 (R) by Karen Templeton Read Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Templeton
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nose.
    “Worn...out...” Jeremy said, the chaise squawking when he collapsed on it. “Josie and me were chasing the baby. Hers, not ours. How can something with legs that short run that fast?”
    “Exactly what your mother and I used to say about you when you were that age. You were like a little lizard, darting away from us so fast we could barely catch you. Especially if you got hold of something you weren’t supposed to have.”
    Breathing a little easier now, Jeremy looked up at him. “I sorta remember.”
    “I doubt it. You wouldn’t even have been two.”
    “No, really.” The boy sat up, his expression far too serious for a kid. “It’s fuzzy, but... I think I can hear Mom’s laugh.”
    Somehow, Zach held it together. From inside, he heard his brother give his father good-natured grief about something, his mother tell them both to behave. Then, faintly, the doorbell ringing. “Not from then, I don’t think. You were five when...she was with us until you were five.”
    Looking out into the now dark yard, Jeremy nodded. “You still miss her?”
    “Every day.”
    “Yeah. Me, too,” he said, then got up. “It’s cold. We should go inside. Where it’s warm.”
    Where, crowded in his parents’ tiny kitchen with everyone else, were Mallory and her mother, Val making introductions as both women effortlessly worked the crowd. Still holding Liam, Zach hung back, watching, unable to take his eyes off Mallory, who’d taken baby Risa onto her lap and was now making faces at her, her eyes alight. Even in a plain black sweater and blue jeans, with not a whole lot of makeup that he could tell, the woman...glowed. As if she was more than a mere mortal. And not only because the overhead light made her hair look like it was on fire. Whatever it was that held his attention captive, it came from someplace deep inside her, he realized. Something unfeigned and completely natural, the very opposite of what you’d expect a famous movie star to be like.
    And for the first time, Zach maybe understood what had made her a star—a true star, not some flash-in-the-pan reality show personality. Because Mallory Keyes was genuine. Real. Whole . A woman who held nothing back. And had that something that made it impossible to look away when she was on-screen. Even if that screen was only his forty-two-inch TV.
    Because, yeah, Netflix.
    Then she looked up and saw him standing there, and that dimpled smile, the mischievous spark in her eyes, damn near stopped his heart.
    Only this time, he knew better than to pay any of it any mind.
    This time, he was smart enough to avoid complications. To avoid her .
    Which he more or less managed for the rest of the evening. Not her presence, obviously—small house and all that—but anything resembling real conversation? You bet.
    Except it wasn’t as if he couldn’t hear her low laugh, or notice how she’d goof around with her mother...or the way the little ones swarmed her like ants on a sugar cube. How easily and often she’d send the older two into gleeful shrieking by making the goofiest faces he’d ever seen a grown woman make.
    Still, Zach remained in control, resolved not to let any of it get to him. To not let Mallory get to him, simply because she was pretty and had a great laugh and could reduce his kids into giggling puddles. Until, a couple hours later, he found her in his parents’ dimly lit living room, his youngest child sacked out against her chest, her cheek resting in his curls, and his heart nearly stopped all over again.
    Hell.

Chapter Six
    S ensing Zach’s presence behind her, Mallory silently sighed, gently stirring Liam’s red curls under her chin. And only partly because Zach’s arrival meant giving up this precious bundle in her arms.
    “I suppose you want your child back now,” she whispered.
    “It is getting late,” Zach whispered back, his boots softly scraping against the worn wood floors in the cozy little room before he sank into an old leather

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