Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins Read Online Free PDF Page A

nerd with braces when you were thirteen.”
    Eli considered. “You’d have to ask the girls in my class whether they thought I was a nerd,” he told her. “Ididn’t have braces, but I earned good grades and I was certainly a lot skinnier than I am now.”
    “I bet you were cute.” She sighed. “If you’d been in my class, I’m sure you would have had girls lined up outside your locker.” She eyed him with curiosity. “And I bet you have girls lined up outside your condo now. It just occurred to me to wonder—do you have a lady friend who’s going to be upset with our pretend love affair?”
    He shook his head. “No. If I did, I wouldn’t have agreed.”
    She sipped her coffee and eyed him over the rim. “I know it’s none of my business, but after listening to the occasional comment from Justin, I’ve always assumed you’re usually dating someone. I’m glad you’re currently available, because it certainly makes my plan to fool Uncle Harry much easier, but why are you unattached?”
    Eli didn’t want to tell her that even if he’d been dating someone, he would have untangled himself immediately. There was no way he’d let Harry maneuver her into dating and maybe marrying Nicholas Dean. He didn’t want to look too closely at the reasons he felt so strongly about Frankie dating Dean, but he accepted that he did.
    “I suppose the truth is, I haven’t had time to think about dating lately. I’ve only been back at work full-time for a couple of months.”
    “Oh, that’s right.” Her brown eyes warmed with sympathy. “I knew you were hurt at work last year, but I hadn’t realized you’d only recently recovered.”
    “It took a while,” he said. “I fell off a scaffold on a construction site and broke my left leg.” He shrugged. “It was a clean break, but there were complications requiring two more surgeries—I was housebound and unable to work most of the year. Plus, I was in physical therapy off and on for months. The end result was that I was rarely in the office—or anywhere else, for that matter,” he added. “Practically the only social function I went to that year was your birthday party at Harry’s house. I was between surgeries that month.”
    Her lashes lowered, screening her eyes, and faint color tinted her fair skin. “No wonder you aren’t involved with someone at the moment,” she said, lifting her gaze to his once more. “You haven’t had time.”
    “No.” He pretended not to notice she’d avoided commenting about her birthday party but knew from the color in her cheeks that she hadn’t forgotten that kiss any more than he had. “The worst part was the boredom. I have no patience with sitting around. A guy can only watch so many cable-TV sports events without a break. Thank God I’m fully recovered and back at work, because, trust me—my grandfather and brothers were about ready to throw me into Puget Sound and let me drown.”
    She laughed, her eyes sparkling with amusement. “I’m sure you couldn’t have been that difficult.”
    “According to them, I was worse,” he assured her. “I’m not a good patient—in fact, I’m lousy at it.” Maybe that was the reason he was so eager to take up Frankie’s plan to foil Harry, Eli thought. Maybe the memory ofthose long, boring months had made him susceptible to any pretty woman with an interesting scheme. “Your plan to outmaneuver Harry at his own game is perfect timing for me,” he told her, although he suspected Frankie was the most compelling element. “It’s just intriguing enough to distract me and make me forget those never-ending months of being stuck at home with my leg in a cast.”
    “Whatever it is that made you agree, I’m just thankful you’ve said yes.” Frankie smiled at him and slid the tip of her tongue over the plump curve of her lower lip, licking away a drop of creamy coffee. Eli nearly groaned out loud, his body tensing.
    He saw women drinking coffee nearly every morning when he