Marrying a Delacourt Read Online Free PDF Page A

he living over here now?”
    “He’s away.”
    “And Trish? Maybe she knew about the boys hiding out in the barn but didn’t say anything.”
    “I can’t imagine Trish going off and leaving two runaways behind. She’d have brought them in and mothered them to death,” he said wryly.
    “Maybe you should call her and ask.”
    He looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Not a good idea.”
    “Why not?”
    A scowl settled on his face again. “Because, if you must know, I have no idea where she is. She deliberately kept me in the dark about her destination. Made up a bunch of hogwash that turned out not to be true.”
    “So that makes me what? Third choice after Dylan and Trish?”
    “Nope, first,” he insisted. “Like I told you on the phone, this is right up your alley. You know about all this family law stuff. You’re compassionate. You’re a woman.”
    “And your sister-in-law, Dylan’s wife, is what? ” she asked wryly. Because the Delacourts were big news in Houston, she’d been able to keep up. She knew all about their marriages.
    Michael shrugged off the question, as if it wasn’t worthy of a response.
    “Unreachable by phone?” she suggested. “Out in the hinterlands delivering a baby, perhaps?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t try. Look, Grace, I know this is an imposition, but you’re the best. Face it, I’m out of my element. When that happens, I know enough to call in an expert.”
    If she’d been on her feet, she’d probably have fainted at the admission. “That has to be a first,” she commented.
    “What?”
    “You admitting you’re at a loss.”
    He regarded her evenly. “I’m not blind to my faults, Grace.”
    “Just not interested in correcting them?” she surmised.
    His gaze narrowed. “Do you really want to take that particular walk down memory lane?”
    Her cheeks burned. She swallowed hard and shook her head, reminding herself that his calling her wasn’t personal. He hadn’t dragged her over here because he’d been pining away for her for the past few years. It was about those two scared boys upstairs. Nothing else. Period. She had to keep that in mind. It would be way too easy to get caught up in all of this, to imagine that they were partners, a team…a family.
    No sooner had that thought slammed into her head, than she jerked herself sternly back to reality. They were nothing to each other. Nothing. Old friends, at best. And this weekend was nothing more than a tiny, last-gasp blip on their flat-lined relationship. It was not evidence that there was life in it.
    “No, of course not,” she said briskly.
    “I thought not.” He studied her intently. “So, what do I do with them?”
    He sounded genuinely perplexed, as if the decision-making king of the business world had finally butted up against a problem he couldn’t solve with a snap of his fingers or a flurry of memos. Grace found the uncertainty more appealing than she cared to admit. For Michael Delacourt to show his vulnerability, especially to her, was something worth noting.
    “What options have you considered?” she asked, curious to know exactly where he was coming from. “And speaking of experts, why didn’t you just call the police and let them deal with the situation?”
    To her relief, he looked genuinely appalled by the suggestion.
    “They’re a couple of scared kids. How could I call the police? They haven’t done anything wrong.”
    “They’ve run away for starters, and you don’t know that they haven’t done more,” she pointed out realistically. “They could have been roaming around for weeks breaking into places, stealing food, jewelry and who knows what else.”
    “If they were stealing food, they weren’t much good at it. They were starved,” he said, ignoring the rest.
    “Think back, Michael. All boys that age are starved at least a half-dozen times a day,” she reminded him.
    “Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
    She was still mystified by what he expected. “Look, Michael,