Mary Wine Read Online Free PDF

living room was rourke’s office. at the moment it had been transformed into some kind of electronic nucleus.
    right in the middle of it, toby sat conducting a symphony of movement. rourke’s own computer had its plastic housing pulled free. there were cables and wires connecting it to the small laptop system that toby sat punching information into. the printer was still grinding along on some project.
    23

    the kid might have been messing with his dish but he also had his own along. perched atop a bookshelf, a small collapsible dish was aimed out the open window it faced. it was a state of the art piece.
    rourke’s unit carried a similar one for combat. they weren’t even available to the civilian market yet.
    “that’s for you. dr. jasper is sending you a novel on me. he said i could look the
    panther over ‘cause there’s an information lag in the targeting system.” the kid’s hands didn’t stop while he spoke. instead they continued punching in numbers and letters alike into the keyboard. he’d switch off to the mouse but return rapidly to the keyboard. it was a frantic pace that made your eyes ache if you watched it too long. but the kid appeared completely in control.
    an open box of cereal was shoved off to the corner of his makeshift desk while the trash can was piled high with empty soda cans and crumpled up printouts. the kid’s shoes were kicked off in the corner and his backpack was lying open on the floor.
    “have you been up all night?”
    “yeah.” the punching and printing continued.
    “geniuses don’t sleep?”
    that got his attention. he turned a huge grin toward rourke before he sent his chair across the space between their joined computers. the wheels on the bottom of the chair skidded as toby ripped the completed pages from the printer’s output tray. another shove and the chair sprang back to his original spot. toby bounded from it before it came to a full stop.
    “here. now i’m gonna go tap into the onboard computer system.” toby shoved the stack of papers at rourke and lunched himself past him at near light speed. dropping the mess, rourke made a grab for the kid but his hand fell short.
    “toby.”
    “tobias kenneth loren! halt!” the kid froze in his tracks. loren stood in the opposite doorway leading to the kitchen with her hands propped on her hips. rourke’s mouth dropped open. she’d obviously jumped right out of her bed. she was wearing nothing more than a tank top and underwear. little blue lace panties, bikini cut.
    “i told you not to get shot while i’m off duty, young man.”
    “jasper said i could, mom!”
    “fine, but you might want to wait ‘til major campbell tells the armed guard out there that you’re clear with him. i’m talking about the guy holding the rifle.”
    “ah, sure.” the kid swung his eyes back to him making rourke jerk his own away from loren’s tempting flat stomach. getting caught looking his mother over made a thin tide of red creep up his neck.
    “why don’t you give me a moment to go over this?”
    “okay.” toby reversed course and dove back into the office. the chair sent out a small squeal as the sound of the kid’s punching began again.
    24

    “is that normal?”
    “for toby? yes.” loren had learned to sleep light the day her son learned to roll over. he was a bundle of nonstop action. from toddlerhood to teenager. a second of inattention was an invitation for disaster. raising her hand up, she rubbed her eyes and forced the last bits of sleep away.
    coffee. it was coffee time!
    loren rubbed her burning eyes as she took a deep breath to clear the cobwebs from her sleepy brain. she lifted her eyelids to see rourke staring at the bare skin her lifted arm gave him a glimpse of across her belly. male satisfaction was written across his eyes as he caught her watching him and grinned at her temper.
    “pig.” the bark of laughter her comment gained almost moved loren to violence. glaring at rourke campbell and his