Weekend Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

the same time. Ty was beginning to think that maybe he’d made his second big mistake of the day. Would he ever be able to make silk purses out of these sows’ ears? He’d had a hard childhood, practically a street urchin himself, but he’d clawed his way to the top because he’d had brains and ambition. Did these have-nots have what it took?
    It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but getting Roxanne off his case. He was just desperate enough to delude himself into thinking that this would work. Finally completing the odious task, Ty dusted off his hands and turned to Emily. “Okay.” He looked around. “Where’s your stuff?”
    Emily grinned up at him, and Ty was taken aback by the beauty of her smile. Even through the streaks of dirt and grime, something about this woman screamed class. Funny how this destitute woman had more class in her little finger than Roxanne had in her whole body.
    Holding up a spiral notebook in one hand, and the dark-haired child’s hand in the other, she said, “This is my stuff.”
    “That’s all?” Ty was incredulous. How could someone survive with nothing but a notebook? And what on earth could she possibly need that for?
    “Yes,” she replied simply. “We’re ready to go if you are.”
    Again she smiled at him, smoothed back her hair, and straightened her collar with a quick, self-conscious gesture. And again Ty was surprised by the gentle elegance she exuded in spite of her unfortunate circumstances. He was dying to know how she came to be homeless.
    Smiling down at her, he said, “I’m ready.”
    “Dadburnit!” Helga thundered from behind him. “Then stop staring and get your skinny butt in the car. We ain’t got all damn night here. I still gotta set up camp when we get to your place. Move it,” she ordered and, throwing the driver’s seat forward, squeezed her generous rump into the back seat of Ty’s Mercedes.
    Emily smothered a giggle behind her hand and looked up at Ty’s stunned face through her heavily fringed eyelashes.
    “Your mother takes a little getting used to.” He gulped and nodded in Helga’s direction. And he had to convince Roxanne that he’d married into this family?
    Emily led Carmen to the car. “Oh, she’s not my mother,” she tossed over her shoulder as she helped the child into the back seat and carefully fastened her seat belt. When she was finished, she stood and looked at Ty over the shiny roof of his car.
    “She’s not?” For some reason, he was incredibly relieved.
    “No,” she said, and didn’t elaborate. “We’d better get her home. She has a lot to do before dark.”
    With those words to add fuel to his indigestion, Tyler got into the car and pulled onto the interstate, the old woman’s plastic goods swirling out of his trunk behind them.
    * * *
    Though they had probably only been driving for a few minutes, it seemed like forever to Emily. Why on earth was it taking so long to get to his house? Hadn’t he said that he lived close by?
    Glancing over at the tense expression on this handsome stranger’s face, Emily grew suddenly worried. Just what did she know about this guy, anyway? What if he was some kind of serial killer? Her eyes darted nervously to the speedometer, and she wondered how she could get Helga and Carmen safely out of the back seat of his car at fifty miles per hour.
    Carmen sneezed several times from the seat behind her, and Emily, resigning herself to her fate, decided to take her chances with this stranger. After all, this is what being homeless was all about, wasn’t it? Living on the edge? If she wanted her thesis to be authentic, she had to take some chances.
    Once again, she slid a sidelong glance over at the polished professional behind the wheel, and wondered what a good-looking guy like him would want from a street person like herself. She knew he hadn’t given her all the details about her new job, and it was obvious that he was hiding something. Maybe he was some kind of pervert.
    Was it