Everything She Wanted Read Free Page B

knocked her out. She loved her clients. Most of them anyway. Teenagershad a way of making you work for every small achievement. They made her think and come up with creative ways to connect with them so she could get them to trust her and eventually try to change their lives.
    Like she’d done with her own.
    “Come on, let’s go find your mom and dad. It’s time to blow this joint and get you settled at my place. Don’t get me wrong, kiddo—­I’m happy to have youfor a few days, but that’s it. You’re not staying.”
    She tickled Alex’s belly, made him laugh, and rose and carried him out the bedroom door and across the landing to the stairs.
    “It’s going to be all right,” Donald assured her sister. He reached up and cupped Margo’s face in his hands, sweeping his thumbs over her cheeks and looking her right in the eye with so much love and devotion thatKate looked away. The tenderness in his affection for Margo stunned her every time. She’d rarely seen that depth of kindness and love between two ­people. She envied her sister that connection to Donald. It’s why she’d agreed to help them. Why she believed in them even if she didn’t admit as much to her sister.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked, stepping down the last few stair treads. “Did somethingelse happen?”
    “Evan called. He’s upset about the divorce and what that means for him as well as his mother,” Donald said in his usual diplomatic way.
    “Donald is cutting off his unlimited supply of funds and putting him on a reasonable budget,” Margo added, rolling her eyes. Margo may live in this big fancy house, but she still clipped coupons and bought items on sale. She didn’t take whatshe had for granted.
    Something about the worry clouding Donald’s eyes about the call triggered a ripple of danger to skitter across Kate’s nerves. Her gut went tight. As easygoing as Donald was, his son Evan’s personality swung the other way. All the way to volatile. Rage mixed with antipathy and entitlement. Not a good combination when you just told a rich kid he’d been essentially cut off.
    “How did you leave things with him?”
    “I told him to speak to his mother to get the real truth of why I’m doing all of this. He deserves to know, then he’ll understand that what I’m offering is generous under the circumstances.”
    “He’s been in trouble in the past. Do you think he’ll come here and cause trouble for the two of you? Is that why you want Alex out of the house?”
    “No,”Donald said definitively. “No.” This time the word held traces of uncertainty and worry. “My concern is that these types of calls will go on for the next few days. It’s going to be a stressful time, and I don’t want my emotions and Margo’s worry to upset Alex. It’s better this way.”
    Kate read between the lines. Donald didn’t want to upset Margo, but he expected trouble in some form from hiswife and son. At the very least, he knew they wouldn’t go away quietly.
    “I promise, Kate, I’ll take care of everything. I won’t let anything happen to Margo.”
    “I hold you to that promise.”
    He smiled, released her sister, and came to stand in front of her. He put his hand on Alex’s back and the other on her shoulder. “I know you will. Margo, Alex, and you are my family. This will allblow over, and we’ll move on together and watch Alex grow into a wonderful and loved man. He is the gift we share. Nothing will make me happier than to have this business behind us and move on. I want to spend the rest of my life making Margo happy and raising our son. All of us together and happy.”
    Kate’s inner pessimist shouted, “Yeah, right.” But holding Alex in her arms, seeing his happyface and the innocence in his eyes, sparked the belief that maybe the life Donald described wasn’t out of reach. They needed to work for it, and that included taking care of old business.
    “Call me if anything more happens. Keep me in the loop.”
    “We