August: Calendar Girl Book 8 Read Online Free PDF

two-story yellow ranch house, complete with bright blue shutters hugging each window, stood at the end of the drive. A white picket fence surrounded the front of the home where a small child played with dolls on a blanket out in the late summer sun. A woman wearing a long sundress leaned against a white wooden column next to the stairs that led up to a wraparound porch. Her dress was myriad blues and greens, reminding me of the tropical waters I’d seen in Miami. One of her pale hands moved and pressed along a large, rounded belly. She had to be almost ready to pop. Her belly was the size of a basketball under the maxi dress. The woman’s light brown hair blew in the soft breeze, untamed by a tie or ribbon. Her entire being, the fertility she so effortlessly displayed, seemed ethereal in this setting.
    When the car stopped, she waved at Max, and he smiled back. That same giant smile he had in the car a couple of hours ago when he spoke of his wife was plastered along his jaw once more. Since then, I’d learned his wife’s name was Cyndi, and he had a daughter named Isabel and a baby boy on the way. He was ecstatic about being able to pass down the Cunningham name to a son.
    I found out he was an only child, raised by Jackson Cunningham who had recently passed away and left him fifty-one percent of the business. The other forty-nine percent was supposed to go to his sister. One he’d never met. One he’d been told shared my birthday and name. The details about what he wanted me to do were still hazy, but he said over the next month, things would become clearer.
    Me, I was just thrilled he was married, and happily by the looks of it. I didn’t have to pretend to be a love interest. With my relationship with Wes so new, it felt like a godsend to find out I’d be playing the part of a long lost sister. There would be no hand holding, pretend snuggling, or chaste kisses for anyone.
    This was going to come as welcome news to my movie-making surfer. A pang punched at my heart as I thought about Wes. It had been less than a day, and the distance between us felt far more acute than I thought it would be. In the past six months, I had been able to be in different places for weeks on end without hearing anything. Hell, in May, I didn’t even have a text exchange with him, both of us too raw after the Gina debacle. I ground my teeth, thinking about Hollywood’s sexiest sweetheart and how she’d had her clutches into my man. Before I realized it, Maxwell had the door open and was helping me down.
    “Darlin’, come meet Mia. Bell, come meet Daddy’s friend,” he hollered at the little girl. His wife waddled down the steps, one hand holding the banister and the other her blossoming belly. The moment she got close, he put his hand to her stomach and the other wrapped around the back of her neck. He lowered his face and looked his wife in the eye. “How you doin’, darlin’? Okay?” She smiled prettily and her cheeks pinked up when she nodded. “And our boy?” He rubbed her stomach.
    “Right as rain, Max. We’re okay, I promise.” She leaned forward and kissed him softly, just a peck on the lips before pulling back. Her bright blue eyes, the color of sparkling sapphires, took in my appearance. She held her hand out. “Cyndi Cunningham. Welcome to our home.”
    I shook her small hand. “Mia Saunders. Happy to be here.” The little girl was hiding behind her mother’s legs, a little arm looped around her knee. “And who’s the pretty thing I see hiding there?” I pointed to the shy child.
    Maxwell took a breath, his chest seeming to puff up even wider and higher. “That’s my first born, Isabel. Bell, honey, come out and meet your daddy’s friend.”
    The small child peeked her head out from behind her mother’s leg. Pale green eyes and golden blond hair like her father’s framed her heart-shaped face like a halo of light. Cherub lips puckered as she wiggled out from her hiding spot. I took in her eyes and