Read Crossing Lines for Free Online

volunteering at the shelter on a weekly basis, Kat had taken on the unofficial role of fundraiser, and she and Janelle were thrilled with the evening’s response.
    “You gonna be around this weekend?” Erik asked, pushing the side door open for Kat while Lizbeth showed Janelle out the front.
    “Nah, I gotta be in Myrtle Beach first thing in the morning. I promised Marianne I’d keep Spencer so she can run some errands and have lunch with a friend.”
    “Why don’t you bring him back here?” Lizbeth said, smiling sweetly as she stepped into the kitchen.
    The hair on Kevin’s neck shot to attention, prickles of alarm danced up his arm, and a neon sign flashed in his mind. BEWARE!
    Lizbeth excelled at being bold, extra-spicy, sometimes sour—never sweet.
    “I haven’t been around kids since Miranda was little,” she said when he continued to stare. She cut her eyes to the side and dipped her chin—another major fail, because she sucked even worse at being coy. “I need the practice.”
    All this Shirley Temple-ing, in conjunction with the topic of kids, would cause most men to panic as they envisioned their future circling the drain. He didn’t understand her motives, but he was positive she wasn’t telling him in some off-handed, roundabout way she was pregnant.
    If that was her intent, she had the wrong man.
    Even though she’d been on the pill when they first hooked up, and as far as he knew still was, he always used a condom to ensure this type of thing never happened. He wanted kids. He wanted a houseful of kids. Just not right now and certainly not with Lizbeth.
    Erik, obviously not privy to that information, hit the panic button on Kevin’s behalf. Sweat beaded on his upper lip, and rather than dancing, his wide eyes wailed a stanza of “Taps.”
    Kevin made a sudden move to snag Erik’s attention, then shook his head and smiled, reassuring his friend Lizbeth didn’t just drop a massive pregnancy bomb.
    Kat, standing outside, blissfully unaware of the holy-shit-what’s-Lizbeth-talking-about taking place on the inside, yelled into the house, “Give me another two months and you can have all the practice you want.”
    Erik grinned at his wife like a man who hit the lottery, then swung back around to Lizbeth. The smile vanished, and he cut a worried glance at Kevin. “Call me,” he said. “We need to talk.”
    He tucked Kat’s hand in his and led her across the expansive lawn running between their houses. When Erik first approached Kevin and Steve about buying the chunk of land along the Pamlico River, Kevin shut him down. Being from Raleigh, with most of his jobs in Myrtle Beach, he didn’t need another house to deal with. Steve and Erik kept at him and eventually wore him down. Even though it was a pain in the ass to drive back and forth, he was glad he caved. Most of the time, it offered a respite from the demands of his job, and he wished he had more time to spend here.
    When Kat and Erik disappeared from view, he cut off the outside lights and stripped his tie off so fast he nearly ripped it. He tossed it onto the chair with his discarded jacket and beelined for the fridge. Erik’s concerned voice of reason whispered in his ear, but his selective hearing knocked the noisy bastard out with a one-two punch.
    Even a non-drinker would toss back a few after a day like this, so he refused to feel guilty for spending a little quality time with Bud and Jack.
    “Will you bring Spencer here for the weekend?” Lizbeth asked.
    “No.” He winced as the response came out harsher than he intended. “I only have him tomorrow, not all weekend.”
    “So?”
    After a long, refreshing pull of his ice-cold beer, he said, “So? I’m not dragging him up here for one day.”
    “You drive back and forth all the time.” Her husky voice disintegrated to a nasally whine.
    “I have to for work, and I don’t enjoy it.” He tried Erik’s squint-for-increased-focus move as he worked to decipher her sudden