The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ had been renovated decades before to include a kitchen, living room, bedrooms in the loft. The electricity didn’t go off like here tonight,” he said, picking up the thread. “But only a handful of lightbulbs worked. The fireplace was covered in cobwebs. The walls and roof creaked enough to have my sister biting her nails. I think that’s where it began.”

      “Your belief in the other side?”

      “No. Sienna’s gnawing at her fingers. Still does it to this day.” Leaning back, he latched his own fingers behind his head and those delectable biceps bulged. “Anyway, the light in the boys’ bedroom blew.”

      “How many brothers do you have?”

      “Three. Mason, Dylan and Thomas.” He pulled a mock-serious face. “We weren’t scared, you understand.”

      She suppressed a grin. “Oh, I understand.”

      “But the wind was blowing like tonight, and when that light-bulb exploded, we all happened to need a glass of water at the same time. Thomas, the youngest, shot out the room first. The rest of us followed on his heels. Our parents were sitting in the musty living room on couches that needed condemning decades before. My father was fuming, vowing to sue whoever botched our reservation, which he later did. He said if a good enough gust came along, the whole place would fly away.”

      “Where was your sister?”

      “Sienna was already snuggled up on my mother’s lap. She’s the baby. Always will be.”

      Grinning, Trinity imagined a cutie with pigtails and stubby nails who relentlessly teased her brothers and got away with it.

      “So you spent the night together in the same room,” she said, “set up all cozy before a fire like we are now.”

      “That’s right. Except…” His hands dropped from cradling the back of his head and he angled more toward her. “Around midnight, the noises began.”

      “What noises?”

      “Distant. Indistinct. But they grew louder. High-pitched, screeching sounds. Scratching on floorboards. Somewhere far off, a rooster crowed.”

      “At midnight?”

      “That’s when we woke our father. He’d drifted off, was snoring softly, but by this time Mom was hiding under the covers, too. He scolded us at first but when he heard the noises, I swear I saw his hair stand on end.”

      A shiver raced over her skin. Bringing up her legs, she hugged her knees. “What did he do?”

      “What any father and husband would do in that kind of situation. He went to investigate. He was gone for what seemed like forever, and with every passing minute the sounds only swelled. That cock crowed again, nearer, louder. And the screeches seemed right there on top of us. The flapping of wings. Smells of a barnyard. A coop. I pulled the cover up over my head when an eerie clucking began.”

       “Clucking?”

      “Right then our father returned. He told us not to worry. He’d found the problem. It was only a bunch of poultry-geists.”

      She gaped and then glared at the same time Zack broke into a grin. Two beats later, she let out the breath she’d been holding on a growl and slapped his arm. “That was so not funny.”

      “Ah, I was only egging you on.”

      A small smile cracked even as her eyes narrowed more. “Don’t leave your day job.” Poultry-geists, indeed.

      “My older brothers have kids. When I go over they always want to hear that story. Entertainment I can do. Diaper duty I leave to the experts.”

      “Not daddy material?”

      “As I’m sure you’d already guessed.”

      She shifted to lie down, propping herself up on her side. She’d like to know more about his family.

      “How often do you see them?”

      “Not including Christmas, Easter, birthdays and other numerous family occasions? All the time. I don’t mind. They’re good kids. What does irritate is—” His jaw tensed and he cut himself off.

      She prodded. “What?”

      “It’s not important.”

      “I say it is.”

      He scrubbed his jaw. “Frankly I’m tired of hearing that I should settle down. Like it’s Regency times and—” he put on an Oxford accent “—every gentleman must find a suitable wife.”

      “Maybe they just want to see you happy?”

      His eyebrows knitted. “I don’t look happy?”

      “Happy in a nonbachelor way.” She put it out there. “Your family must feel like they’re in a revolving door the number of times they see you with a new woman hanging off your arm.”

      “Good thing it’s my life and not theirs.” He leaned back, latched his fingers behind his head again and stared off at some distant point past the ceiling. “Unless you weren’t aware, I’m content with my life just the way it is. What about you?”

      “I’m busy, settled and happy with my job.”

      “And unattached after that breakup.”

      “Definitely unattached.”

      “But I’m guessing you’d want to tie a knot sometime…have children someday. You have a knack with babies.”

      Her heart dropped an inch and she looked into the fire. When she felt his expression sharpen, she explained. “I like children. Babies.”

      “That’s kind of obvious.”

      Her cheeks began to burn, but she shouldn’t feel awkward. Zack had his life and she had hers.

      “Thing is,” she said. “I don’t have family to fall back on, and sometimes both a mother and father drop out of the picture, for one reason or another. I have friends,” she went on. “Good friends. But no one I’d trust enough with a child of my own if something, you know, ever happened. And I have nothing against adoption. Heck, I would’ve loved to have been adopted by a loving family. And, when it’s needed, I can’t slight good foster care.” She took a breath. “Life is about choices. I’ve chosen not to go down that having-my-own-children path.”

      Trinity took a breath and looked from the bed of flickering flames back to Zack.

      A crease forming between his brows, he shifted and lay down on his side, too. Propped up on an arm, he set his jaw in the cup of that palm. After a curious moment of his intense gaze skewering hers, she shifted, too, and frowned.

      “You mean not get married, have children?” he asked. “I thought you sacked the boyfriend because he didn’t approve of kids?”

      “That’s right. He didn’t approve of them at all. I mean, you might not want to be a father, but you like your nieces СКАЧАТЬ