Read Natalie Acres for Free Online

encasing the large flat-screen television. Once there, she collected several framed snapshots and a photo album.
    Turning to him, she thrust her arms forward and said, “Here. Go on. Take them. I want you to see what you’re trying to disrupt.”
    “You’ve got it all wrong, Ansley. I don’t want to mess up things for Brock and Rory or Trixie for that matter.”
    “I think you do,” Ansley said, persistently jabbing her arms forward.
    Finally, Mitch took the pictures and sank to a bench located at the end of the bed. Setting aside the framed images, he opened the album.
    Ansley leaned over his shoulder. “That’s their wedding day. Brock and Rory were so proud.”
    Mitch stilled at the picture. Trixie looked so beautiful. Her golden hair was piled high on her head and ringlets framed her face. A fitted off-white gown was rather plain, but on Trixie’s body, the wedding dress looked elegant, absolutely divine.
    He flipped several pages of wedding photos before he came to a large eight-by-ten photograph of Trixie in a hospital bed. Holding a baby in her arms, Trixie was surrounded by her family. Her sisters, her mother and fathers, and Brock and Rory were there.
    “That’s Caz,” Ansley told him. “A few pages over are the pictures of Winter’s birth.”
    “What’s your point?” Mitch bit out, angrily slamming the photo album and rising to his feet.
    Ansley grabbed one of the snapshots and waved it in his face. “This is Trixie now. This is her family. This is her life.”
    Mitch’s eyes burned as he looked at the image before him. Little Cazeron looked up at his mother with a big chocolate-covered smile spread across his face. Rory and Brock were standing on either side of Trixie and baby Winter was cradled in her arms.
    His heart clenched. He was physically pained by what he saw, not because he felt as if he were a threat to the happiness displayed before him, but because he knew in his heart of hearts, he belonged in that painted picture of perfection. Trixie’s family was his family.
    Why Brock and Rory couldn’t see he belonged with them was a question for which he’d soon demand answers. As soon as he found them, he’d make them understand. Surely they’d see what he easily noted in the pictures.
    Trixie was satisfied, but she wasn’t as happy as she could be. There was something missing in her eyes, something significant. That something was him.
    “Look a little closer, Ansley,” Mitch said steadily. “What you see is your sister. You see a woman with two men who love her. You don’t notice what is clearly absent.”
    Without any reluctance whatsoever, he withdrew a picture from his jacket and tossed it to the bed. “That’s what your sister misses. I’m the void in her life.”
    Ansley picked up the photograph and studied it before handing it back to him. “All I see are three men frolicking in the water with a young woman who looks like a tease.”
    Mitch laughed as the memories came rolling back. She was a tease, until she wasn’t. Then Trixie became a saucy siren, a seductress to be reckoned with, and a woman who not only stole away with his heart, but took him on one hell of roller-coaster ride.
    The ups and downs he’d endured were impossible to define. He’d served time in prison for her. He’d gone back to Jordie Anne in order to save her and the others from the disruption she might cause them, because he’d known—yes, he’d known all along—what Jordie Anne was potentially capable of destroying. He’d feared what Trixie might face, what kind of hell Jordie Anne might bring.
    “I was desperate to protect her,” Mitch finally admitted.
    Ansley narrowed her gaze. “Why?”
    “Ansley, this is really between your sister and—”
    “Why now, Mitch?” She waved her hand in front of the bookcase. “Years, Mitch. She has a history with Rory and Brock. They’ve started their family. Cazeron and Winter are happy children. This is the life they’ve created.” Her