Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2 Read Online Free PDF

bugs?”
    â€œNo. I liked horses and swimming. And books.” He grabbed the coffeepot. “I’ll make some coffee.”
    â€œWhat about your baby sister? Did she like bugs?”
    Zane looked purposefully at the handle of the coffeepot, then stared past her shoulder out the kitchen window. “Maggie died when she was five. Scarlet fever. That’s when I decided to become a doctor.”
    Winifred could have bitten off her tongue. To lighten the pall that had fallen, she opened her mouth and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “I will scramble you some eggs this morning.”
    His dark eyebrows rose. “You can cook?”
    â€œWell, not much. Growing up, we always had a cook. But I wager that eggs are easy to scramble.”
    â€œCeleste couldn’t cook a damn thing,” he said quietly. And then he smiled.
    It was the first real smile she’d ever seen on his face. For some reason it made her so happy she wanted to do something extra nice. Sam seemed to scramble eggs with no apparent effort; they must be easy to fix. She decided to make lots of them.
    While Zane made coffee, Winifred found an iron frying pan and four eggs. She shooed Zane out of the kitchen and set to work. She heated the pan over the hottest part of the stove, cracked all four eggs into it at once and smashed them together with a fork.
    They congealed instantly into rubbery globs that looked nothing like the creamy golden eggs Sam had set before her.
    Apprehensively she scooped the mess out onto Zane’s plate and set it before him. He sat looking at it for a long minute, gulped a swallow of coffee and looked up into her eyes.
    â€œYou can’t cook a damn thing, either, can you?” he said softly.
    And then he smiled again.

Chapter Four
    Z ane didn’t want to hurt Winifred’s feelings about the plate of hard, dry scrambled eggs she’d served him. But when Sam staggered into the kitchen full of apologies for sleeping late, Zane left him in charge of Rosemarie and walked down to make hospital rounds, check on Sarah Rose’s grandson and his chicken pox, then ended up, as he’d planned, at the Smoke River Hotel dining room.
    â€œScrambled eggs, please, Rita.”
    â€œSure, Doc. Just come from the hospital, didja? How’s the sheriff’s new twins?”
    â€œMaddie and the babies are doing well. Can’t say the same for the sheriff, though. Seems he’s been at the hospital the last twenty-four hours. Can’t seem to take his eyes off his twin sons.”
    A wide grin split the waitress’s round face. “Don’t blame him, Doc. Our Johnny’s never been a father before. New babies take some gettin’ used to.”
    A plate of perfectly scrambled eggs appeared within minutes, and after he doused them liberally with catsup, he dug in. Rita hung at his elbow with the coffeepot.
    â€œGuess you heard Johnny’s been studyin’ those law books Miss Maddie gave him. Gonna run for judge next election.”
    â€œWhen will that be?” Zane bit a half circle into his toast. Jericho Silver—Johnny, as Rita called him—was a good man. Honest. Intelligent. Hardworking. He’d make an excellent judge.
    â€œIf he gets elected he can stay home nights, feeding those twins.”
    Rita grinned. “Oh, he’ll get elected all right, Doc. I’m his campaign manager.”
    Zane saluted her with his empty cup. Just as Rita lifted the pot to fill it, Zane froze. Good God, Winifred was entering the restaurant. The moment she spied him she frowned, wiped it off her face, then let it return and crossed the room to his table.
    â€œAre those scrambled eggs?” she demanded.
    He rose and invited her to sit down. “Rita, bring another plate, will you?”
    â€œAnd some scrambled eggs, please,” Winifred added.
    They stared across the table at each other for a long minute.
    â€œQuite a coincidence, isn’t