Sympathy for the Devil (International Bad Boys Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoots. Brochures. Advertising. Did I tell you that Cutter Jackson told me about a possible photo shoot job here in the Bay?” She made her voice light and playful. “His sister-in-law makes costumes and she wants someone to take pictures of them for her website. Who knew we had a costume designer in Brunswick Bay?”
    Her father snorted. “No one?”
    “Hence the need for someone to photograph her work. Anyway, Cutter said he’d put in a good word for me if I wanted the job. It was nice of him to offer.”
    “Nothing to do with you being good at what you do,” her father said dryly. “You still sweet on him?”
    “No. Cutter’s not for me. It’s just . . . that whole family is kind of magnetic, you know? They draw people in. Liven things up.”
    Her father put his coffee down and his feet up as he settled into his chair. “Your mother found a stack of old photos up in the attic a while back. Photos of the Jackson boys.”
    There was only one old stack of photos he could be talking about. Bree felt her breath hitch and quietly willed herself to relax. “They were the ones I used to get into art school. Some of them, at any rate. Where are they now?”
    “I think your mother put them back. That middle boy, Caleb. That the way he looked at you back then?”
    Her father always had seen too much. “It was a long time ago. I’m all for looking forward.”
    “So am I. You haven’t found anyone?”
    “No.” She plucked at the wicker of the armchair. “No grandkids for you yet. Sorry about that. I want a family, I do. I just need to find the right man first. A good man. A kind man.”
    “Are there not enough of those about?”
    “And he has to make my pulse race.”
    “Ah.” Her father nodded solemnly. “If you found someone here would you stay in the Bay? Could you base your work here?”
    “I—don’t know. Sydney’s a good place for a photographer. Lots of flights in and out. Plenty of work.”
    “There’s an airport twenty minutes down the road.”
    “With crippling regional flight prices.”
    “I have money. And pretty soon it’s going to be your mother’s money, and some of it’s going to be yours.” Her father glanced away. “Guess I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen to your mother after I’m gone. I like the idea of you being here for her. I like the notion of her having grandkids to fuss over.”
    Bree blinked hard in an attempt to shut down a sudden onslaught of tears. “Dad—you are not dead yet. Prostate cancer is treatable. You know it is.”
    “I know.”
    But they both knew that his current treatment wasn’t going well.
    “I’m getting maudlin,” he offered gruffly. “But it’s a pretty picture, this one in my head. Two girls and a boy. And a good man who makes your pulse race. I hear you ran into Caleb this morning.”
    “You are not subtle.”
    “What did he think about you taking the Jackson job?”
    “It’s complicated.”
    “How so?”
    “Well—” Bree stopped. There was nowhere for this conversation to go.
    “Is it because you dated one brother and wanted the other?”
    Bree sipped her coffee not entirely sure that she wanted to look her father in the eye. “Why would you say that?”
    “It was the photos. They exposed him completely. And they exposed you.”
    She should have burned them. Instead she’d hidden them away, tiny treasures fixed in time. To this day, they were some of the most powerful portrait pictures she’d ever taken. “Leaving when I did kind of sorted all that mess out,” she offered quietly. “No one got hurt. And if I stay away from the lot of them, no one’s going to get hurt.”
    “He still make your pulse race?”
    “Cutter?”
    Her father just looked at her.
    “Okay, so, Caleb.” She looked down so that she wouldn’t have to see the knowledge in her father’s eyes. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure he could make anyone’s pulse race.”
    “That is the general opinion. Fair warning, Breanna. He does have a