A Marriage Between Friends. Melinda Curtis

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      “I’M NOT GOING to support your casino.” Wary-eyed, Jill wrenched herself free from his grip and edged around the sawhorse until it stood between them.

      “Mom? Are you okay?”

      “I’m…fine.” She gave her son a weak smile.

      “Jill?” That unwanted protective male instinct, the one only Jill aroused, had reawakened. Vince wiped his palms, still warm from touching her, against his trousers and stepped away.

      “I’m fine,” Jill repeated, hefting one end of the sawhorse and dragging it toward the open shed behind the garage. “I’m not supporting your casino.”

      “I haven’t asked you to,” Vince snapped, taking the other end of the sawhorse and examining her face, hoping to find a reason for his old obsession.

      Jill stumbled under his scrutiny, but kept walking backward.

      On the first day of kindergarten Jill had stuck up for Vince in front of a teacher, and he’d contracted a bad case of puppy love that continued through childhood only to fizzle out less than a year after their wedding day. She was pretty enough, but no longer his type. He liked his women pouty and aggressive in bed, women who didn’t mind that he wore a wedding ring and wasn’t interested in anything long-term. Vince took note of how high up Jill had buttoned her flannel shirt.

      Nope. He was definitely over her.

      “Just so you know,” Jill said woodenly, “people come here to get away from it all. Having a casino at the turnoff to Shady Oak doesn’t exactly reinforce that feeling of peaceful solitude.”

      Vince didn’t want to talk about the casino. “The two can coexist.”

      “Not on my mountain.” Taking baby steps, Jill led him into the gloomy, crowded shed. Once the sawhorse was on the floor and the only barrier between Jill and the door was Vince, she froze, watching her husband from the shadows as if scared of him.

      Of him. As if he’d been the one who attacked her. Could the day get any worse? Vince stubbornly refused to move, waiting for Jill to show some backbone. “I don’t think you own the entire mountain.”

      “No.” She still didn’t move.

      They stared at each other in silence for several seconds more.

      With a sigh, Vince backed out of the shed and into the boy.

      Craig’s son.

      The vivid blue eyes and reddish-brown hair were Jill’s. Try as he might, Vince couldn’t see anything in this kid of the solidly built, blond mama’s boy who’d date-raped Jill.

      “Who are you?” the kid asked.

      “Vince Patrizio.” Vince offered his hand and took the opportunity to lead the boy back to the garage.

      The smell of new wood permeated the crisp mountain air. From what he could see, Shady Oak was a replica of an old Western town. There were small bungalows with covered plank porches and wooden rocking chairs. The garage was painted to look like a red barn. A two-story 1800s-style building with a sign across large double doors proclaimed it to be Edda Mae’s Dining Emporium. The entire place would have looked like a kids’ movie set, except there was no landscaping, just dirt and pine trees.

      “I’m Teddy Patrizio. We have the same last name.” Teddy cast a questioning sideways glance at Vince.

      Vince was only half listening, still thinking about Jill’s Western corporate retreat, a concept very similar to the themed casinos in Vegas. “It’s a good last name. It’s Italian. I’m happy to share it.”

      Jill hurried past, picking up a tool chest on her way to the front of the garage. Wearing boot-cut jeans, her legs looked long and Vince found it hard not to follow her every move with his eyes until he realized he had an audience.

      Another sidelong stare from the boy. This one appraising. “I don’t look anything like you.”

      “Teddy!” СКАЧАТЬ