Turn My World Upside Down: Jo's Story Read Online Free PDF Page A

farther.
    Cash sighed, and took another sip of his beer before setting it down on the workbench. Looked like he was going to have company for a while. Josefina was going to be royally pissed, but damned if he’d shoo the kid off just to keep his sister from erupting.
    Walking across the room, he took the planer away from Jack and said, “You have to lay this evenly against the edge of the wood. Then you push it slowly forward. It shaves off a little bit of wood at a time.”
    Jack shuffled his feet through the curls of wood on the floor. “Like that?”
    “Yeah. You want to try it?”
    “Really?” Blue eyes lit up with eagerness, and Cash told himself that he’d deal with Jo when he had to. A part of him was already looking forward to watching her fury and that was enough to convince him that he was a sick, sick man.
    “Yeah. Go ahead.” When the boy had hold of the tool, Cash dropped his big hands on top of Jack’s andguided him through the first stroke. “Think you can handle that?”
    “Yeah,” the boy said, chewing determinedly on his bottom lip. “I can do it.”
    “Okay.” Cash turned for the workbench, picked up his favorite planer, and then walked around the project that would eventually become a hand-carved, one-of-a-kind chest of drawers. “You do that side, I’ll do this one. And if you need help,
ask
.”
    “Right. Okay.” The boy kept his gaze on the task at hand and concentrated on making each stroke of the planer exactly like the first one.
    Cash kept one eye on the kid while he settled into a patient silence. Something had brought the boy all the way out here, and he figured if he waited long enough, the kid would eventually spill it.
    Didn’t mean he
cared
. Didn’t mean he was letting the boy
in
. He was just . . . getting a little free labor. He only hoped Jack would talk before Josefina showed up and skewered both of them.
    “So how’s Jack doing?” Mike finished off the last of the muffins, licked her fingers, and turned a look on Jo.
    “Okay, I guess,” Jo said, closing the binder and leaning back on the sofa.
    Truth to tell, she and her new brother weren’t exactly hitting it off real well. Probably her fault, she acknowledged. But then, she hadn’t
asked
to be a temporary mom, had she?
    Just a week ago, her father had come to see her at her condo.
    Things were still a little strained between her andPapa and they both knew it, though neither one of them mentioned it. Jo hadn’t been able to get past her father
—
the one man in the world she’d trusted above all others
—
having an affair while his wife lay dying. And Papa was so busy walking on eggs around her that it only made the situation more uncomfortable
.
    “I don’t like to ask, Josefina,” he’d said, rocking nervously on his heels
.
    “I know, but—”
    “Michaela, she can’t watch Jack for me right now with the babies so close, and Sam, she’s too sick all the time, plus she has Emma and . . .”
    “I know,” Jo said, trying to find just the right argument and coming up empty. She knew darn well she was going to lose. “But Papa, the business . . .”
    He sensed her weakening and moved in for the big finish. “It’s just a couple of weeks, Josefina. I know I shouldn’t go, but Grace made the reservations and I don’t want to disappoint her.”
    Grace Van Horn, Papa’s lady friend, was worried about him. But then, they all were. He’d had a heart attack several months ago. A minor one, but it was enough to rub mortality in everyone’s faces. Now, Grace had arranged for the two of them to take a romantic cruise around the Greek Islands and Jo, though she really hated to think of her father in a “romantic” situation, couldn’t really tell him no
.
    “Fine,” she murmured and let herself enjoy the hard, brief hug from Papa. God, she’d missed him. Missed the easy way they’d always had together
.
    And she didn’t know how to get it back
.
    “Good. Good. This will be a good thing for