(Rainshadow, #2) Deception Cove Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked.
    “The eggs are for me. The pizza is for Houdini.”
    “Got it,” he said. “All right, to get back to our business. You do know about the Sebastian-North legend, I assume.”
    “I do now.” Alice took a small swallow of the wine and lowered the glass. “But I had never heard about it until a year ago.”
    “A year ago?”
    “That’s when I found out that I was descended from a certain Nicholas North.”
    That stopped him for a few beats. “I know you grew up in an orphanage, but didn’t you know anything about your family history?”
    “Nope.” She drank some more wine. “The most that anyone at the orphanage could recall was that I arrived there at about age three after my mother was killed in a car accident.”
    “What do you mean, that was all anyone could recall? There must have been some records when you were taken in.”
    Alice shrugged. “There was a fire in the records office at the orphanage when I was four. What little information there was relating to my family history was lost.”
    “What about your father’s people?”
    Alice gave him a cold smile. “Nothing. The general theory at the orphanage was that I was the product of a one-night stand or a short-term affair in which neither party had kept current with their anti-pregnancy shots.”
    Drake said nothing.
    Alice raised her brows. “They do happen, you know.”
    “What happens?”
    “One-night stands between two people who don’t take precautions.”
    He realized he was flushing a little. “I’m aware of that.”
    “Society and the legal system do everything possible to make sure no one grows up without a family, but kids still get orphaned.” She paused. “I realize that sort of thing doesn’t happen in the Sebastian family world, though.”
    “No,” he said, refusing to let her sarcasm get to him. “It doesn’t. We take care of our own.”
    Alice gave him a cool smile. “How very traditional.”
    “Moving right along, how did you find out about the connection to Nicholas North?”
    “Long story. Involves my dead husband.” Alice drank more wine. “I don’t like to talk about him.”
    “We’re going to have to discuss him at some point because I think he’s linked to this thing.”
    Alice eyed him coldly. “What
thing
would that be?”
    “The treasure that North and Sebastian buried on Rainshadow. It’s gone missing.”
    She narrowed her eyes. “You think I stole it, don’t you?”
    He watched her closely. “Did you?”
    “No.” She held up one hand, palm out. “And before you ask, no I can’t prove it.”
    “Do you know who did steal it?”
    “Uh-huh.” She studied him over the rim of the glass. “Fulton Whitcomb.”
    “Your husband.”
    “Dead husband. And it was just a Marriage of Convenience so it doesn’t really count. Death results in an automatic dissolution of the marriage. The surviving spouse does not inherit any property. She has no legal or financial obligations pertaining to her husband’s estate. It’s like the marriage never happened.”
    “Unless there are children from the union,” Drake said softly.
    Children changed everything. The birth of a child into an MC automatically converted what was otherwise a dressed-up romantic affair into a full-blown Covenant Marriage. Dissolving a Covenant Marriage was a legal, financial, and social nightmare. His brother, Harry, had discovered that the hard way.
    “Yes, well, there were no children,” Alice said coolly.
    “Because both of you kept current with your vaccinations?”
    “I certainly kept mine up-to-date. Not that it mattered.”
    Drake heard a tiny mental
ping
warning him that this was important. “Why didn’t the shots matter?”
    “Because getting pregnant would have been biologically impossible under the circumstances.” Alice drank the last of her wine and set the glass back on the table. “Fulton and I never had sex.”
    Maud came out of the kitchen carrying two plates. She set the pizza down on the bar.