1022 Evergreen Place Read Online Free PDF Page B

don’t know my father.”
    â€œWe’ll give him time,” Linc said. “I’ll do everything I can to prove to your family that I’m going to be a good husband.”
    â€œIt won’t matter,” she whispered. “Daddy will never forgive me…. He was still angry about Geoff and—and then I married you.”
    â€œDo you want to end the marriage?” he felt obliged to ask.
    â€œNo, never,” she said, her arms tightening around him.
    â€œMe, neither,” Linc murmured, and he thought he felt her smile against his shoulder. “Come on,” he said, easing her out of his arms. “We have some celebrating to do.”
    She looked up at him blankly.
    â€œI signed the final papers for the garage this afternoon, remember?”
    Lori smiled weakly, then slipped her arms around him again. “I don’t care what my family thinks. I’m grateful I married you.”
    Linc was grateful, too. Swinging her into his arms, he moved toward the bedroom.
    â€œWill it always be like this?” she asked, sighing as she kissed his jaw.
    â€œI hope not,” he said with a chuckle. “This much happiness just might kill me.”

Three
    S taring at the phone on his desk, Will Jefferson mentally prepared to call Shirley Bliss—again. Twice now she’d come up with a convenient excuse to turn down his invitations. Either the woman had an incredibly active social life or she wasn’t interested. Without being vain, he found that difficult to believe. Okay, he was a little vain. He knew he was a good-looking charmer—smooth but not too smooth. Smart, successful and sexy, the latter according to more than one woman.
    He was also persistent. He hadn’t come this far in life without a healthy dose of good old-fashioned grit. He’d returned to his hometown, purchased a failing art gallery and was determined to make a fresh start.
    Admittedly he’d made his share of mistakes. If he had it to do over again, he would’ve done certain things differently. For one, he would’ve paid a lot more attention to his kid sister’s best friend, Grace.
    Years later Grace did attract his notice, but by then it was too late. They’d reconnected shortly after Will learned of Dan Sherman’s death. He’d sent her a sympathy card and, on a whim, added his email address. Not long after that, they’d begun a friendly correspondence.
    Will hadn’t known about the crush Grace had on him while they were in high school. That information had soothed his ego. His marriage was deteriorating; he and Georgia were just going through the motions. About five years into the marriage he’d stumbled into an affair with one of the women from his office. Naturally he regretted it and begged Georgia to forgive him. She did, and he was grateful. Yet his indiscretion had always been there between them, like a bad break that had never totally healed. A broken limb could remain weak forever after, unable to tolerate pressure or stress.
    Her forgiveness hadn’t been complete, he realized now. It was as if she’d been waiting for him to do it again.
    And he had.
    But Will didn’t blame Georgia. After all, he was the one who’d strayed. Still, his wife had given him the cold shoulder for so long that when a friendly young waitress flirted with him, he’d been flattered and receptive. Sally was young, attractive and impressionable, and he’d responded.
    Georgia knew about it. She had to have known, but she didn’t say a word and neither did he. Sally wanted him to leave Georgia and he might have if not for the fact that Georgia was diagnosed with breast cancer. He couldn’t walk out on his wife when she needed him most. After two years Sally ended the relationship.
    Thankfully Georgia recovered and for a while he thought they might be able to have a successful marriage. He’d tried to make her happy, to recapture what