Shoreline Drive Read Online Free PDF Page A

Richmond and move to Sanctuary Island.
    A sense of possibility, exciting potential, raced over his skin and raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck.
    It didn’t take a degree in psychology or a high score on the emotional IQ test to see that Merry Preston was in trouble. She needed help. She needed a hero.
    Which was bad luck for her, because all she had was Ben. Who was no one’s idea of a hero—but for the chance to get the family he’d always wanted?
    Ben could fake it.
    *   *   *
    Merry watched her mother holding her fussy baby boy the “right way,” and felt something inside her chest positively shrivel up into a dried-out knot.
    Part of her wanted to grab Alex and stomp out of the barn. The other part of her was terrified that Jo was right.
    Merry had no idea what she was doing.
    A sharp rap on the wooden door frame behind them had Merry whirling to face Ben’s determinedly neutral expression.
    He lifted one black brow. “Can I get a word?”
    Jo gave him an easy smile, her face soft and handsome in the warm light of the barn office. “Sure, let me just—”
    “Sorry,” Ben interrupted, lifting his chin. “I meant with the kid.”
    Warmth spread through Merry’s insides, banishing the bad feelings. “I knew it!” she crowed, pointing at the vet. “You can’t resist snuggles with Alex.”
    Pulling his mouth into a disgruntled line, Ben marched into the office and held out his arms in an imperious gesture. Looking mildly confused, Jo handed Alex over with a swift glance at Merry.
    But Merry didn’t have time to reassure her or explain what was going on, even if she were able to puzzle it out herself, because in the next instant, Ben spun on his heel and walked out of the office.
    “Well?” Ben stuck his head back through the door, impatience sharpening his already razor-edged voice. “Are you coming?”
    Merry jumped and gave her mother an apologetic glance. “Sorry! This will be fast, I’m sure, and then we can go home.”
    Amused, Jo waved a hand and sank down into the chair behind her ancient desk. “You kids go on. It’s not as if I’m running low on paperwork.”
    Merry hustled out into the hallway and paused, glancing up and down the wide, dark corridor. Moths banged recklessly into the floodlights set high in the rafters, and the horses they’d brought in from the paddock for the night sighed and shifted in their stalls. Other than that, the evening air was quiet.
    That was when she realized that Alex had stopped making those little complaining cries that meant he was tired but would rather work himself into a full-blown screaming fit than sleep.
    He’d been fussing off and on for the last hour, ever since his dinner, and no amount of holding and walking by either Merry or Jo had helped. In fact, Merry had needed to give herself a stern talking-to about the glimmer of gladness she’d felt when being picked up by Jo hadn’t immediately fixed Alex’s bad mood.
    Now, as she spotted Ben down at the end of the hallway just inside the open double doors to the outside, Merry smiled. Looked like where she and Jo had failed, Ben had effortlessly succeeded.
    Alex was completely silent in Ben’s arms, staring up at the man’s face with wide, fascinated blue eyes. As Merry walked up to them, Alex lifted his dimpled hand and made an uncoordinated grab for Ben’s granite-hard jawline.
    When Ben didn’t jerk his head away, Merry noticed that he was staring down at Alex as if he’d never seen anything so miraculous. Seeing Ben’s normally shuttered gaze broken open by such tenderness tugged hard at Merry’s bruised heart.
    The intensity of the look on Ben’s face kept her from teasing him any further about his interest in Alex. This man, who professed to care for nothing and no one outside of his veterinary practice, definitely cared about her son.
    “What are you showing him?” she murmured, glancing past Ben’s broad shoulders to the dark night outside the circle of light