Just Not Mine Read Online Free PDF Page B

yours,” Will said.
    “My father and stepmother died a year or so back,” Hugh explained, “so I’m living there right now. They’re my half-sister and brother, actually.”
    “ That’s rough,” Will said.
    “ Not so bad. It does put a crimp in the dating life, though. I like fast women, that’s my problem. They used to like me, too,” he said with a reminiscent sigh. “But you ought to see them run in the opposite direction now, when they find out. You know that thing when you go out with someone, and you can tell she’s sizing you up as the future father of her children?”
    “If they are, I’m looking the other way,” Will laughed.
    “Or they may just not want your dodgy genes in their pool,” Hugh suggested with a grin of his own. “But what’s worse than that is when you can tell they don’t want anything to do with the kids you actually do have around.”
    “ May be time to consider a slow woman instead,” Finn said. “That little thing called getting to know somebody first? She may even like the kids, you never know.”
    “ Think that’d work?” Hugh asked. “Get one of those sweet, motherly ones, one who wants to be home with kids who aren’t hers half the time while I travel, who wants to make those home-cooked meals? And still look good, of course. That’s the tricky bit.”
    “ A hot babe who’s going to want to take care of you and a couple of kids who aren’t hers into the bargain, let you shove them off on her?” Will asked. “That’s a pretty sketch plan you’ve got.”
    Hugh didn’t answer, because he’d got rattled at realizing he’d just described Finn’s wife, and that the other man was looking a bit grim. Finn grim wasn’t a sight he’d ever relished on the paddock when he’d been playing against him, and he wasn’t enjoying the sight of it now.
    And then it got worse, because he heard a small voice at his elbow. “’Scuse me.”
    He turned to see Charlie, and his brother’s thin face didn’t look happy at all.
    “How long hav e you been standing there?” Hugh asked him. “What did you hear?”
    Charlie shrugged. “Dunno.”
    Hugh closed his eyes for a second. Shit. “Something wrong back there?” he asked. “Need something?”
    “ That baby’s crying,” Charlie said. “In its room. I thought I should say.”
    “Which one?” Hemi asked.
    Koti had a look at the box set up on the table. Some kind of monitor, Hugh guessed, because it was flashing red. “Whoops. Falling down on the job, aren’t I.” He handed the tongs to Finn. “Finish this meat, will you? I’ll go check.”
    “So , Charlie,” Finn said, turning steaks with a practiced hand. “Think your brother should get married?” Tackling the problem the same way he tackled everything, Hugh realized. Head-on.
    “Yeh,” Charlie said with decision.
    “Got any candidates in mind?” Finn asked. “That can be the best way,” he informed Hugh. “Get the experts’ opinion. May not be who you’re thinking.”
    “He should marry Josie,” Charlie said. “ She’d be the best.”
    “Who’s Josie?” Hugh asked. “I don’t know any Josie.”
    “She’s Miss Chloe’s friend. You know, Miss Chloe, Amelia’s dance teacher.”
    “I know who Mis s Chloe is,” Hugh protested. “And a dance teacher might be all right.” Miss Chloe would be all right, in fact. More than all right. And she taught kids. That could be the sweet, motherly thing right there.
    Charlie considered. “I don’t think she’s a dance teacher herself,” he said fairly. “I think she’s too big. And she’s all … sort of soft-looking. I don’t think she could be a dancer.”
    Hugh was getting the picture. Probably looked like the backside of a bus.
    “But she has such a pretty face,” Will said. “And a great personality, eh.”
    “Yeh. She has the kind of face I like. Kind of friendly and smiley,” Charlie said. “Sort of jolly.”
    Definitely the backside of a bus.
    Koti came back out onto the