Bosom Buddies Read Online Free PDF

going to juggle things until Anne gets out of the hospital?”
    “Not a blessed clue,” Ian admitted.
    Allie suspected the admission cost him. Maybe it was his way of making up for being short with her earlier. “Well, I’ve been thinking.”
    To Ryane, Ian whispered, “It’s always a dangerous thing when a woman starts thinking.”
    “Don’t you listen to him,” Allie said to the baby. “Men always think they don’t need anyone, but we women know they always do.” To Ian she said, “We’ve been neighbors for three months, but I don’t have a clue what you do.”
    “I run Ryan’s.”
    “As if that explains everything,” Allie said, laughter in her voice. “Where do you run Ryan’s to?” she asked.
    Ian gave her a chagrinned smile. He seemed more at ease than he was on their walk. The storm had passed. “I work with businesses, mainly small ones, and try to help them optimize their uniqueness. We look for innovative ways to market their products, ways to streamline their businesses, sometimes even set up computer systems that will strengthen their business and help them compete with large corporations . . .”
    Ian was on a roll and talking with more animation than Allie had ever witnessed. She had no head for business and his explanation amounted to Blah, blah, blah in her head, but she nodded and tried to look enthralled. An animated Ian was every bit as attractive as a smiling one.
    Not that she was interested in him. The stirring she felt in her stomach as she watched him was probably just indigestion, nothing more.
    “Sorry,” he finally said. “I tend to go on. Anne says she listens to everything and absorbs about ten percent.”
    “I guess Anne has more business savvy than I do, because I think I got about five. But I have to confess, I loved listening to you talk about it, Ian. When you talk about something you love—the business, Anne, Ryane—you don’t resemble the man I originally thought you were.”
    “And that was?” he asked.
    Allie smiled. “ A suit. A man who only had business on his mind. An automated corporate robot. But you aren’t what you appear to be. You really love what you do, don’t you?”
    He nodded. Ian might think he was a private person, but Allie thought maybe he was using the word ‘private’ in place of the word ‘lonely.’ Ian Ryan suddenly seemed very lonely, and Allie wondered if there was anyone other than Anne in his life.
    There was a lot more to Ian than she’d suspected. “Yes, I’ve learned lately that appearances can be deceiving.” She caught herself and switched subjects. “Well, back to Anne and Ryane. I work ten-hour shifts, four days a week, so I’m totally off on three days a week and clear to help out with Ryane. When I took the job at the hospital, it was with the understanding that I would be improving their breastfeeding versus bottle feeding ratio. So, part of my job is phone counseling, working with the new mothers in order to get their breastfeeding relationship off to a better start. I think I can talk to my supervisor and do it here, so . . .”
    “Really, I don’t expect you to upheave your life in order to help.”
    “Yes, I got that feeling, but I didn’t say you expected it, I just offered.”
    He repeated the question he’d been asking since she first showed up on his doorstep. “Why?”
    Sighing, Allie tried one more time to explain. “I don’t know where you’re from, but where I come from that’s what neighbors do, at least in my neighborhood. When Dad died they brought meals for weeks. Mrs. Daniels, next door, offered to keep us after school until Mom came home from work. And when Mom got sick, everyone pitched in too.”
    “And now you’re going to do the same for me?” he asked.
    “You know the old saying, what goes around, comes around? Well, I’m just adding a little good karma to my warehouse, remember? Now, how are we going to juggle our schedules tomorrow?”
    “I don’t—”
    “As I