The Way They Were Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t stay.
    She didn’t disappoint him when four seconds later, she lifted her fingers and began counting. “One, we have to share a community toilet. Two, a community shower, and that is just gross. Three, there’s no fridge, so no Pepsi, no yogurt, no ice cream. Four, there’s no remote. Five, no cable. Six, no internet connection in my room. You have the only one and that sucks. Seven—”
    “Enough.”
    “I’m going to run out of fingers before I finish.”
    He’d rather haggle construction costs with his toughest opponent than sit here listening to this babble.
    “Rourke, you are not listening.”
    “I heard you, Abbie .” Damn his nomad sister for getting herself killed.
    “I am so bored.”
    Rourke massaged his right temple. Why in the hell had he ever allowed Maxine to talk him into bringing Abigail—Abbie—here? What did Maxine know? She was a spinster who’d never raised anything but a miniature terrier. “Where are all those DVD’s you ordered?”
    “How am I going to watch them? Maxine said the DVD player I picked is on backorder.”
    “Books then. Read something.” She could read, couldn’t she?
    She snorted. “Right.”
    Rourke studied his niece and wondered again why anyone would torture themselves with a child. They were messy, demanding creatures and he could see how they sucked the life out of a person.
    Well he was having none of it. She wasn’t even his child, for Chrissake. If she had been, he’d never have let her get so out of hand and dead parent or not, the kid was a bigger pain than the multi-unit luxury condos in Denver he’d just negotiated. He dug around in his briefcase and pulled out a handful of magazines. “Here.” They skidded across the floor and landed a foot from her. “Learn something.”
    She snatched them up and rifled through them. “ Forbes? Money? Time? I’m thirteen years old!”
    He loosened his tie and smiled at her. “It’s never too soon to learn about dollar cost averaging and leveraged buy-outs.”
    “Are you for real?” She flung the magazines across the room and jerked to her feet. “I need to use your cell phone.”
    “Where’s yours?”
    She looked away and shrugged.
    “Abiga—Abbie, where is it?”
    “I’m not sure.” At least she had the good grace to sound mildly apologetic. “It’s either at home in my other purse…”
    He raised a brow and waited.
    “Or I lost it,” she mumbled.
    “I see.”
    “Yeah,” she looked up and threw him a timid smile. “So I need your phone.”He shook his head. “Why not? It’s not like you can’t spare the minutes.” And then she zinged him with, “Or the money.”
    “That’s not the point, is it?”
    She ignored him. “Can you just let me use your phone?”
    “No.” She was a persistent creature, he’d give her that.
    “Why not?”
    “Because it’s not my problem. It’s yours.” He pointed to the Money magazine sprawled face down on the hardwood floor. “There’s a very interesting article in there on asset allocation.”
    “Arrghhh!”
    He waited until her little outburst subsided. “Now go find something to do. Be back by five.”
    She glared at him. “This is so not fair.”
    He glared back. “Life isn’t fair. Deal with it.”
    She mumbled under her breath but he ignored her and turned back to his computer. Apparently the tactic worked because seconds later the door slammed shut.
    The next hour proved equally frustrating with no computer access. If he were going to stay at the manor for a few weeks, he had to have internet. He’d speak with the owner, Mrs. Gibson, and have her set up a service call with the cable company to upgrade this room, no later than tomorrow afternoon. Rourke closed his laptop and scooped up the magazines from the floor. When he opened his briefcase to dump them inside, he caught sight of the folder with Kate’s name along the side tab.
    Meeting her again certainly hadn’t gone as planned. Not that there’d been any great plan,