More Than Rum (The Maple Leaf Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

side.
    His legs looked extra long in
the faded blue jeans he wore. The green sweatshirt made his hazel eyes more cat-like.
They searched the room. For an exit most likely. Not finding one, he strode
into the living room and sat in a cushiony chair—the piece of furniture
farthest from where Hope sat.
    Sage immediately got up and
crossed the room to Adam. “Stand up.”
    “Why?” Adam looked at her
suspiciously, which he was probably right to do.
    What is she up to now?
    “Because I told you to,” Sage
said, waving him up with her hands.
    Adam looked around Sage to
Orion. “Don’t you have her under control yet?”
    “Nope,” Orion said, settling
deeper into his seat on the couch. “Don’t plan to get her under control either.
I love her just the way she is.”
    “Oh, brother,” Adam and Hope
said at the same time.
    Hope’s eyes connected with
Adam’s for the briefest of moments, but then he looked away. Slowly, he stood
in front of Sage, his tongue darting out over the split in his lip—a split he’d
gotten swooping into Hope’s rescue. She hated that he’d gotten hurt helping
her.
    “Thank you,” Sage said,
wrapping her arms around Adam in a hug. “You saved my Hope. If something
happened to her, I’d… I’d…” She released him and glanced back to Hope, whose
eyes were filling with tears. “Well, I don’t know what I’d do, but thanks to
you, I don’t have to know.” She squeezed his hand and sat back next to Orion on
the couch. Her arm snaked over to Hope, and she gave her a pat on the thigh.     
    Adam cleared his throat as he
sat again, and Hope desperately wanted to know what was going through that
handsome head of his. When she’d first met him, he appeared to be in favor of
starting a relationship. Sage had told her he’d asked about her, wanted to meet
her and everything. They’d had a few dates, but then he’d done a one-eighty on
her. He’d even gone so far as to completely drop off the planet for a few
months.
    She ought to move on to someone
else, but she couldn’t. Even now, looking at him all the way across the room
there was… something about him. Something she couldn’t shake. Something she
wanted to know more about.
    “Did you get the job?” Orion
asked.
    Job?
    Adam nodded.
    “So Black Wolf Tavern has a new
bartender?” Sage asked.
    “A few nights a week, yes.”
Adam shifted in his seat, clearly not wanting to discuss the matter.
    “We’ll have to come in for a
drink.” Sage looked at Hope with raised eyebrows, and bless her for trying, but
was drinking going to get Hope any closer to unraveling the mystery that was
Adam Rouse?
    Wendie came in with a plate of
spaghetti for her brother. She handed it to him and set a bottle of beer on the
coffee table in front of him.
    “See? No celery.”
    Adam took the fork and poked at
the mound of spaghetti topped with sauce and a meatball. “There better not be.”
    “You don’t like celery?” Sage
asked. “Hope hates celery.”
    At this, Adam actually looked
at Hope and a quick, sudden sweat broke out all over her body.
    Jeez. Get it together. He
just looked at you, idiot.
    “Do you hate it or truly loathe it?” Wendie asked. “Because Adam doesn’t even want to be in the same room with
it.”
    Sage laughed. “Hope once
stormed out of Rick’s store when a customer brought a veggie platter in for a
book group she was having. She took one look at the celery slathered in cream
cheese and said she didn’t get paid enough to watch cream cheese be abused in
that fashion.” She turned to Hope. “Do you remember that?”
    Hope hadn’t been able to tear
her gaze off Adam as he stared back at her, but she said, “Yeah, I remember.
Nobody ever considers the cream cheese’s feelings.”
    A slow smile turned up the left
side of Adam’s mouth, and everything in Hope’s body skipped—her heart, her
breath, that magical place low in her belly that hadn’t skipped in a loooong time. Good God, he was like a zap of