Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF

she’d decided to relocate and spend her retirement closer to Richard, the decision had astonished Ellen. Why would anyone voluntarily give up Michigan Avenue for the cornfields of central Ohio?
    But Ohio had charmed Ellen when she wasn’t paying attention. Something about the quiet, and about the way she noticed every seasonal change in the trees and the plants instead of the presence or absence of sewage smells.
    The roots of small-town life had twined around her feet gradually, until one morning in the bleary early months of Henry’s life, she’d woken up and looked out her bedroom window and thought, I’m never going to leave . And then astonished herself by smiling.
    “All I’m saying is you should give yourself a break,” Jamie said. “Do something fun.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “You’re pigheaded.”
    “No, that’s you.”
    He closed his hands around an imaginary neck and throttled her. She stuck out her tongue.
    Last towel folded, she transferred the pile to the basket and stood, picking up her iPad. “I’m going to work now. Some of us have real jobs.”
    “I have a real job,” he protested. “I have to rehearse with the dancers this morning, and then I’m flying somewhere for a thing.”
    “A thing?”
    “I don’t know. A couple appearances, an interview, whatever. And then two shows this weekend. I’m very busy, very important.”
    “Yeah, yeah. You keep telling yourself that, Tiger Beat .”

Chapter Four
    Caleb watched his mother extract a Mento from the package in her purse and frown at it before offering it to his nephew Jacob, who popped it in his mouth with a “Thanks, Grandma!” and ran off to tell his brothers.
    “It’s really nothing,” she said to Caleb. “I don’t want you to worry about it.”
    Dinner long since over, they lingered in his front hallway, conferring at a volume that was quiet only in comparison to the racket the rest of the family was making.
    “Why don’t you just tell me what happened and let me decide?” He asked this question in a tone that mostly concealed his intense frustration with her. A small victory. Small victories were the only kind he ever scored in this ongoing passive-aggressive campaign she was waging to drive him up the fucking wall.
    Six months he’d been back in Camelot, and still he and Mom did this polite dance nearly every time he saw her. Let me help you , he’d say. Let me take a look at that bill from the insurance company. Let me see that pile of work orders Dad hasn’t been able to deal with .
    And she’d say, Oh, you’re too busy. Really, there’s nothing to help with. Have a seat, let me fix you something to eat .
    The whole apartment complex could fall down around her ears, and she’d still insist there wasn’t a thing Caleb could do to help out. Which might be okay if she didn’t also, regularly and at great length, declare what a mess everything was, and how badly used she felt since his father’s stroke. It’s too much , she’d say. And then shove him away with both hands when he tried to take some of the burden off her shoulders.
    His mother delayed her reply, surveying the open-plan living room with a pinched, disapproving expression. Dad leaned against the wall by the kitchen, tugging on his U.S. Army ball cap and spinning out some story about the annual Fourth of July fireworks that he’d already told twice tonight. Caleb’s younger sister, Katie, offered him a wan smile as she leaned against the wall beside him, arms crossed, listening.
    The boys, Clark, Anthony, and Jacob, chased their barking golden retriever puppy in circles around the dining room table as Caleb’s older sister, Amber, laughed at something her husband, Tony, said and squirmed away as he tried to pull her into his lap.
    You wouldn’t know from looking at his mother’s face how much she loved this gang of monkeys, but she did. Her heart was in the right place. If she remained above the fray, withholding and continually finding fault,