Words From The Heart (Spring-Summer Romance Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand. Girls I may have to have some help with.”
    Releasing a long breath, she calmed herself and ran her damp palm down her pants leg. “You have no idea how happy this makes me.”
    Bennett stood, still holding onto August’s hands. “I think I do,” he replied, his eyes still on her face. “The same way I feel seeing June peaceful.”
    Audrey offered him a smile. “You teach him to be mobile too fast, and I’ll need a leash to keep up with these three.”
    To her surprise, he laughed. The sound whisked, pleasant, in her ears and stretched down to her soul. A hint, like bread baking or popcorn popping where your mouth watered way in advance, she tasted the flavor on her tongue. Joy and tranquility for the children, the security of growing up, safe, protected. But stronger in the mix was a taste she’d forgotten, the salty savor of a healthy, attractive man.
    It curled in her gut, on the edge of hunger, and suddenly, she was twenty-six and newly wed, gazing into her husband’s adoring eyes. He’d made her a woman on their wedding night. But she’d set that behind the day he’d left and had no right to long for it now, especially not with a man who had so much else on his mind.
    Desperation shot through her to escape.
    “I should …” Stepping forward, she grasped August and pressed him to her chest. “He still … nurses sometimes. Why don’t you and Jeff go downstairs?” Not waiting for his response, she spun on her heel and dashed to her room. After a quick walk through the Jack and Jill bath to check on June, she retreated to her bed.
    August wasn’t particularly hungry, but she forced him anyway, wincing at the nip of his teeth, and conscious she was clinging onto memories as much as Bennett was. Yet, she longed to go back there, experience those emotions again, the lack of them becoming that much sharper.
     

     
    If Bennett had questions about her behavior, he never said so, and Audrey wasn’t about to bring it up. Instead, over the next few days, she fell into a routine in an effort to forget the incident entirely. Her days were made up of simple household tasks, her mind entirely on the children, and any contact she and Bennett had was fleeting.
    At the end of her first week there, however, he approached her as she folded the children’s clothes. He’d dressed up more than usual, black slacks, a white button up, the sleeves rolled to the elbow. He also had on expensive shoes. But it was the dash of cologne that caused her to stop mid-motion.
    “You smell good,” she said, unthinking. There was, perhaps, no harm in complimenting him, except for where it took her thoughts. Meeting his intense gaze took them further away from her task, to the strength of his arms, the broad span of his chest, the day’s growth of beard he seemed to wear a lot. “What’s the occasion?” she asked, awakening herself.
    Her gaze immediately rested on August and June. The baby gnawed on one curled first. August, as usual, gripped his bare feet.
    “I have a business meeting.”
    She furrowed her brow. It was good if he was willing to work, but his doing so this suddenly surprised her.
    “Just a meeting. I’ll be gone a couple hours. They have questions about a client I was directly involved in and need my input. I was thinking …” He paused. “Why don’t you take the children somewhere, get out for a while? You’re always so busy here.”
    Take them somewhere? She could, but she realized, sitting there, she hadn’t taken them anywhere alone yet. Always, they’d split them up, Jeff, still preferring to tag after Bennett. “I need to visit my mother.” And father, who remained curiously silent. She’d called numerous times, but only ever spoken with her mom.
    Worry rose in Bennett’s eyes.
    Seeing it, Audrey released the garment in her hand, and setting it beside her on the couch, she stood to her feet. “Dad may have problems with you, but he’s incredibly soft with children. I know he misses