It Takes a Family. Victoria Pade

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СКАЧАТЬ was dawning and, after glancing at the hint of sun through the window, he decided he was never going to get any sleep, so he rolled out of bed. It was anybody’s guess what today would bring and he might as well shower, dress and be prepared.

      But even as he went into the bathroom connected to his bedroom, Lea was still on his mind. Lea and Amy and the claim that Amy was his again.

      Yes, once upon a time he’d believed what Lea Pratt had said. About everything.

      He’d believed she wasn’t aware that she was going twenty-six miles over the speed limit and was sorry and would slow down. He’d believed she was nothing more than the local Pratts’ curious half sister who had buzzed into Northbridge to finally meet them and satisfy her curiosity. He’d believed every single thing she’d told him, including that the baby she’d delivered eight months after their whirlwind, love-at-first-sight courtship, was his premature daughter.

      He’d believed it all until Lea had nearly ripped his heart out by taking away the baby he’d cared for and loved for five weeks as if she were his.

      Then he and the Pratts had had their eyes opened. And faster than Lea had come into their lives, she was gone.

      And so was Amy.

      Luke had made it into the bathroom, but not to the shower. Lost in his thoughts, he’d stopped at the sink and was gripping the edge with both hands, elbows locked, head hanging between his shoulders as the memory of his own stupidity tormented him.

      A sucker—that’s what he’d been. A sucker for a pretty face, a great body and a lot of smooth lies.

      He raised his head and pushed himself from the counter, making it to the shower this time and turning on the water.

      A lot of smooth lies…

      And now here was Lea’s sister with a tale of her own. A tale of woe.

      After Karis Pratt had made her announcement, Luke’s first thought was that Lea wasn’t dead. That she’d sent Amy with her aunt and another pack of lies to get rid of the child. That was why he’d checked up on the explosion story.

      That hadn’t been a lie. Lea was dead. And so was Ted Pratt. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything else Karis Pratt had said was true.

      True or false—not easy to tell, Luke thought as he stepped under the spray of the shower.

      Hard-luck stories usually netted a bigger payoff. That was what Lea had used at the end on her half siblings. Maybe that was the angle Karis Pratt was working again.

      Financially wiped out by something Lea had done.

      Planning to sleep in her car in a snowstorm last night.

      She loved Amy but couldn’t afford to keep her….

      Going over the laundry list of Karis Pratt’s claims, Luke was scrubbing his head so hard it hurt.

      He eased up, muttering a word his mother had washed his mouth out with soap for saying when he was eight.

      It was just that it ticked him off to realize, as he mentally replayed what had happened in his entryway the previous evening, that there was a part of him that kept wondering if it was a scam.

      But Karis Pratt had been telling the truth about Lea’s death. What if she was telling the truth about everything else, too?

      Damn, but he didn’t want to be thinking that.

      Only there were things about the night before that nagged at him. Things that might have only been clever special effects, but still he couldn’t quite shake the memory.

      Things like coming close to tears when she’d said she loved Amy. The forget it that had made it seem as if she couldn’t go through with leaving the baby after all. The whole attitude—as if she’d been doing about the last thing in the world she wanted to do. Even the concession that, yes, Lea might have been lying to her when she’d said Amy was his.

      She’d been very convincing.

      Plus, there was Lea. Lea had taken him for a ride. She’d taken her half siblings for a ride. As far as Luke knew, she hadn’t had a single compunction about lying to anyone about anything at any time. Did he doubt that she was capable of lying to her full sister, too? Or doing something that would cost Karis everything she had?

      No, he didn’t doubt it.

      Or maybe it was easier to think that if Lea could do what she had to him and pull the wool over his eyes, she could do it to anyone.

      “Or maybe you’re getting taken in by another pretty face,” he accused himself as he rinsed off shampoo and soap suds.

      Another pretty face that was actually prettier than the one he’d fallen for before. Much prettier. Beautiful, in fact.

      Yeah, there was no denying that even looking the worse for wear the previous evening, Karis Pratt was beautiful. More beautiful than Lea had been at her best.

      Lea had had untamed good looks. Not trashy, but not girl-next-door, either. Long bleached-blond hair she’d artfully mussed to always appear tousled. Cat-shaped blue eyes. Lips so full they’d seemed enhanced. A chest the same way. A chest that she’d liked to show off.

      But her sister? Karis Pratt had a more wholesome beauty. Shiny reddish-brown hair the color of a rain-soaked tile roof on an adobe house. Thick, smooth, healthy-looking hair that kept escaping the control she’d tried to put on it by slipping it behind her ears. Chin-length silk with bangs that teased the left brow of a face that was impossible to find a flaw in.

      Creamy, alabaster skin. High cheekbones. A mouth that had some of Lea’s lushness without the falsely enhanced abundance. A nose that was just the right length and more narrow, more refined than Lea’s. And blue eyes that lacked the catlike shape but instead were big and round and sort of glistening, like a mountain lake at daybreak.

      Karis Pratt was smaller than her sister, too. Slightly shorter—probably five foot four instead of five-five and a half. Thinner. Flatter, but still curvy enough.

      Actually, as Luke turned off the shower and grabbed his towel from where it was slung over the shower door, it occurred to him that Lea had probably learned early on to overdo the makeup and hair—and even the bustline—so as not to be overshadowed by her more naturally stunning sister.

      So yeah, he’d noticed Karis Pratt’s looks. How could he not have? But was that making him inclined to believe her?

      Hell, he wasn’t inclined to believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. He hated even wondering if anything she’d said beyond the news of Lea’s death might be true.

      But he was wondering. And if he was wondering, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to just blow off everything Karis Pratt had said. Including what she’d said about Amy, and Lea’s claim that she actually might be his after all.

      The word he spit out then had cost him a mouth-washing at ten.

      He was just so disgusted with himself for even entertaining the slightest possibility that Amy was his.

      But as long as the question СКАЧАТЬ