True Colors Read Online Free PDF Page A

guys were here…. They’ll
get it done before Memorial Day. Don’t worry…. Well, with the
weather, they couldn’t… It’ll get done, Dad. In time for the
season…. No, they’re leaving the fence. Just like we discussed….
Okay. ’Bye.” She lowered the phone and gave Max an apologetic
smile. “I’m sorry.”
    He checked himself before reassuring her he
didn’t mind. He didn’t, really; after all, he’d just barged in on
her, interrupting her work day. He hadn’t made an appointment, and
he ought to be grateful she’d invited him into her office. But he
didn’t want things to get too friendly between her and himself. He
was pissed off, and he wanted to stay pissed off.
    What had he been saying before the phone
rang? Monica thoughtfully reminded him. “According to the
lease…?”
    He nodded. “According to the lease, you were
supposed to be the only person living in the house. No sublets were
allowed.”
    “Emma isn’t subletting. She’s just staying
with me.”
    “I rented to you, not to her. I wasn’t
renting the house to make money—obviously. The rent is way below
market value. I just wanted someone—one quiet, responsible adult—to
stay in the house and make sure the pipes didn’t freeze in the
winter.”
    “They didn’t,” Monica said sweetly. “I made
sure.”
    “The lease was a simple arrangement.
Straightforward. Low rent, one person. But you invited someone else
to live with you—and even worse, she’s running a school out of the
house.”
    “It’s not a school,” Monica argued. “She just
does art with some kids. I don’t suppose it matters though, does
it? Andrea told us we’re going to have to vacate the premises in
June. Unless you’d like to consider renewing the lease.” She sent
him a hopeful smile.
    “That’s not going to happen.” Damn Monica
Reinhart for being so pleasant. She was coming across as civil and
polite, and he was coming across as some sort of monster.
    But he was pissed off . He’d flown
into Boston, rented a car and driven up to Brogan’s Point,
intending to make sure his house was still standing and then stop
by at Andrea Simonetti’s real estate office to discuss listing the
house for sale. Then he’d planned to drive back south to Cambridge,
to spend a couple of days visiting his beloved mentor, Professor
Stan Weisner, and indulging in a beer or two at one of his favorite
college hangouts.
    He hadn’t expected to find that wild-haired
woman in his house—with a pair of kids in tow. And to learn that
she was living there, and running a commercial enterprise without
his permission, without a zoning clearance, without any of the
legal necessities…
    He’d been taken advantage of before. He
wasn’t going to let that happen again, regardless of how civil and
polite Monica Reinhart was.
    Her phone rang again. “Oh—excuse me,” she
said before lifting the phone and directing all her civility and
politeness toward her caller. “Monica Reinhart speaking… No, that’s
up to the landscaper. He has to work around the sprinkler heads.
Talk to Barry about it, okay?” Another contrite smile as she set
the phone back in its cradle. “We’ve really loved living in the
house,” she told him. “We’ve put every effort into taking good care
of it. We’ve shoveled the driveway all winter, even though
technically that wasn’t our responsibility. We scrubbed all the
outdoor furniture on the deck and stored it in the basement. We
thought about hanging some pictures—well, Emma did. She’s an
artist. She loves being surrounded by art. But we didn’t want to
put any nail holes into your walls, so we left them bare.”
    “An artist. Right,” he muttered, a vision of
that short, curvaceous woman with her flamboyant mop of hair
flashing through his mind.
    “Did she tell you about her Dream Portraits?
This is so cool—she paints a portrait of a person and surrounds the
portrait with that person’s dreams. The one she’s working on now