Real Men Don't Break Hearts Read Online Free PDF Page A

bullshit. Still, he shouldn’t have laid into her so hard. She’d surprised him the way she’d stood up to him. Ally was all grown up now and, he had to admit, surprisingly attractive even when she was riled.
    Why did he have to buy the one building containing Ally’s shop—not to mention her apartment, too? He groaned at his rashness. Of course, he didn’t have to go through with it. Property purchases had a cooling-off period, and he could take advantage of that to extricate himself from a tricky situation. But he knew he wouldn’t. He’d promised Mr. Cummings, and Nate never went back on his word. Old-fashioned, maybe, but there it was. Also, by buying Mr. Cummings’s less-than-prime piece of real estate so the old man could go fishing in the sun, he was doing the right thing by the bloke. Making amends for the past. Even though the man had no inkling of Nate’s reasons. Reasons he didn’t want to think about too closely right now. And regardless of that, why the hell should he back down anyway, just because of Ally?
    All too soon he reached his house. It was situated on what had once been the outskirts of town, but recent subdivisions meant the old timber-clad home on half an acre was now surrounded by modern villas on small allotments. As he got out of the car, he glimpsed the curtains twitching at the front window of the place next door. Mrs. Bennett, his old neighbor, being a busybody. Just like old times.
    Opening the front door, Nate was greeted by a cold, musty smell tinged with a hint of mildew. A cleaner went through the place once a month, but an old house like this needed living in to disperse the ghostly damp.
    Ghostly damp? Where’d that come from? He wasn’t exactly the sensitive type. Yet, walking through the house, he couldn’t get rid of a sense of an otherworldly presence hovering over his shoulder. Ignoring it, he flicked on lights, opened windows, turned on heaters. Ghostly damp or not, he was determined to spend the night here.
    He fetched his bag from the car, found some sheets, and made up his old bed. Every movement echoed through the house; he’d forgotten how quiet it was around here.
    When his mobile phone rang, the caller ID told him it was Seth. The muscles in his abdomen tensed slightly as he answered. “Hey, Seth.”
    “Hi.” Seth sounded disconcerted. “Er, are you okay to talk right now?”
    “Sure.”
    “Wasn’t expecting you to pick up. Thought on a Friday night you’d be on a date.”
    Oh, yeah? Nate’s mental antennae bristled. He knew his cousin pretty well. Seth had chosen this hour to call on purpose, hoping to get his voice mail, and wasn’t keen to speak to him directly. Why?
    “No, no date tonight.” Just a flipped-out woman hurling soap at him.
    “So…where are you?”
    Nate frowned, his suspicions growing. Seth didn’t normally indulge in phone chit-chat. “I’m down in Burronga.”
    A half-strangled choke bounced against Nate’s eardrum. “Burronga! What the hell are you doing there?”
    “Just checking up on my place.” He paused, deliberating whether to confide in his cousin. Why not? It wasn’t as if he had anything to hide. “As a matter of fact, I’m planning on moving back here.”
    “What!” Nate held the phone away from his ear until the coughing died down. “I don’t believe it. Why would you want to do that?”
    Good question. He’d wrestled to come up with a logical answer but had failed. He had very strong, very personal reasons, but he wasn’t prepared to bare his soul to all and sundry. Seth was his cousin, Nate had helped him get his start in Sydney, but they weren’t exactly confidantes.
    “I need a change,” he said briefly.
    “So you’re resigning from Praxus?”
    “I’ll be doing some part-time consulting for them sometime down the line, but yeah, I’ll be gone in two weeks.”
    Seth let out a low whistle. “Jesus H. Christ. I don’t believe it. Didn’t they give you a six-figure bonus last