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

ear.
    “So … this ‘Audrey’, she’s living with you?”
    Bennett delayed a response. He and Rick had only had marginal contact with each other, yet what he knew of him was all positive. “She has to in order to care for the children. That’s why I hired her, to do what I’m incapable of.”
    Rick lowered his voice. “She’s … nursing the baby?”
    Again, Bennett didn’t immediately speak. “That’s what I’m incapable of,” he finally replied.
    “That doesn’t feel odd?” Rick waved one hand outward. “Never mind. I’m being insensitive. We all just want you to get better.”
    Get better? Like he’d been ill. Bennett took a bite of his sandwich, the flavor not as tasty as it once was. No offense to Rick, but any comments they’d made, good and bad, were extremely suspect, their condolences, merely gratitude he wasn’t there. Because what he’d done to her dad, he’d done to others … and often worse.
    Audrey had said he wasn’t the same man anymore, and after today, he knew how true that statement was. At this point, he wasn’t even sure he could ever go back to nine-to-five within those building walls.
     

     
    Audrey balanced August on one arm, while toting June’s car seat with the other. She set it down outside the door and raised her fist to knock. Jeff half-dragged the diaper bag down the walk, the weight of it almost as much as him. “You’re such a big help,” she said, making room for him to join her on the stoop.
    Her first knock went unanswered, so she tried again. This time, the lock clicked and the painted surface gave a groan as the door swung inward. Her mom, dressed in khaki slacks and a floral print blouse, gazed out.
    “Let me help you,” she said. She reached for August, then spotted Jeff and paused. “Well, what a big man you are to carry all that. Here, why don’t I take it, and you can come in out of this heat?”
    Gratitude washed over her at her mom’s care. Taking hold of June’s car seat again, Audrey navigated her way indoors, through the foyer in her mom’s wake.
    She inhaled deep, a smile on her lips. She’d promised Jeff cookies and could smell them in the air.
    “What do you think …?” her mom asked, entering the tiny kitchen, barely twelve feet square. She bent over at the waist, more into Jeff’s view. “You think we’ll spoil our lunch if we eat dessert first?”
    He shook his head.
    “Me neither.” She patted the stool. “Take a seat, and you can have one. Mr. Ferguson has already had two.”
    Her dad’s lumbering gait rustled from the far doorway. “I’m coming for a third,” he called out. “You must be Jeff,” he said. “My name’s Dale, and that’s Everly. Kind of hard to say, I know, so you can call her Eve.”
    Jeff stuffed the cookie in his mouth in response.
    Her dad’s gaze lifted, meeting hers.
    “Daddy …”
    He continued forward, giving her a hearty hug. “I’m glad you came,” he mumbled in her ear.
    She reversed to an arm’s length. “It was Bennett’s suggestion.”
    Hearing Bennett’s name, sparks flared in his eyes briefly, replaced, seconds later, by the interest in both August and June. “There’s my grandson!” he declared. He grasped August’s curled fist in his own, then glanced downward. “And this young lady …”
    Releasing August to her father, Audrey removed June from the seat. She faced her forward so her parents could see her tiny face.
    “She’s a lovely child,” her mom said. “She seems content.”
    Audrey read meaning between the lines and held pride in her mom’s remark. Coming here was a good idea. “She’s doing much better, sleeps more regularly already and doesn’t cry so much. I feel like I’ve gone back in time some, and taking care of August and Jeff make for more work. But it’s very fulfilling.”
    Her dad made a garbled cough, his cheeks stained red. “Me and my boy need to have us a talk,” he said. “It’s been a week and feels like a year.”
    “Dad