All Grown Up Read Online Free PDF

something I don’t see?” Sam spoke from behind her, startling her so badly she dropped the poker.
    She picked it up, rearranged the logs and replaced the screen. At last, she turned to face Sam. Her feelings were too close to the surface, and she feared saying something stupid. “Just enjoying the blaze,” she said lightly.
    He sat up, yawning. “Sorry to crash on you like that. It’s been a long week.”
    “Since you quizzed me, I suppose it’s okay for me to ask if you have a lady friend who will expect you home tomorrow?”
    He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and ran his hands through his hair. “I’m between relationships at the moment,” he said, his voice muffled.
    Annalise was well aware that Sam Ely was considered a “catch.” Over the years she had noted the stream of females flowing through his life. Noted and been silently wounded by it. “What happened to the last one?”
    His head lifted and he resumed his earlier position. But although his body language signaled relaxation, his gaze was guarded. “We differed on some important issues. Politics. Religion.”
    “And that was enough to forego sex with Diana Salyers?”
    He grinned. “You know a lot about me for someone who hates my guts.”
    Annalise sniffed. “You paraded her around all over Charlottesville. Kind of hard to miss. But I’ll admit that I didn’t know it was over. You strike me as being the kind of guy who could overlook things like that.”
    He grinned. “Touché. All right. If you must know, I found out she doesn’t want to have kids.”

Three
    S am took it as a good sign that Annalise was interested in his love life. Not that he had decided to coax his irascible house guest into bed. But it was nice to know there was some level of emotional involvement, despite her determined antipathy.
    He crossed one ankle over the other and rubbed his chest with one hand. Annalise’s gaze tracked his every move.
    She worried her bottom lip. “You want kids?”
    Her incredulity nicked him. “I’m on the wrong side of thirty-five. Is that so strange?”
    Instead of sitting down, she paced, her nervous energy palpable. “I didn’t peg you for the family type. Didn’t your parents divorce?”
    He nodded. “When I was nine. Dad worked long hours, so Mother got full custody and took me to Alabama, where she was from.”
    “Hence the accent.”
    “Yeah. Alabama was great, but I’d visit Dad several times a year, and then every summer, I came here. To Sycamore Farm. Gram and Pops were security. Roots.”
    “And this farm will all be yours one day.”
    “I’m in no hurry. It’s so far from town I don’t know if I’d ever live here full-time. But weekends and vacations certainly. I’d like my sons and daughters to have the same great experiences I remember.”
    “Kids…plural? I thought children of divorce ended up cynical loners.”
    “Do I seem like that kind of guy to you?”
    She turned to face him, their gazes locking across the room. For long moments the only sound was the pop and crackle of the fire. “No,” she said finally. “But I did assume you were a confirmed bachelor.”
    “Not at all. In fact, when the right woman comes along, I’ll snap her up and hopefully give Gram and Pops some great-grandchildren while they’re still young enough to enjoy them.”
    “Interesting.” Annalise walked to the window and tugged aside thick brocade draperies. Darkness had fallen and the glass was too frosted to see anything anyway.
    He couldn’t read her at the moment. “What about you?” he asked. “Are you going to ride the wave of happily-ever-afters that has overtaken the Wolff family?”
    She turned, clearly shocked. “Me? Oh, no. And definitely not kids. It wouldn’t be fair.”
    There was no palatable explanation for the leaden block of disappointment in his stomach. “How so?”
    Now she paced behind him, meaning that unless he wanted to stand up and join her, he had no way of studying her expression. He