Harlequin Heartwarming May 2016 Box Set Read Free Page A

and cracking it open.
    â€œNick, you have thirty seconds or we’ll miss our flight.”
    â€œI’m ready,” he said, slinging his bag over one shoulder, swinging the door wide open and shoving past her. He was definitely taking after his dad in above-average height and already matched Tessa inch for inch. His jeans and dragon T-shirt were getting too short again. If only he’d let her take him to cut his hair a few inches to match. His blond side-swept bangs made it impossible to look him in the eye. His room looked like the latest hurricane had made landfall. Good thing Brice never bothered going past Nick’s bedroom. If he had any idea there was a room in the house in a state like this, he’d die.
    â€œUh, are you sure you didn’t forget anything you need? Toothbrush, perhaps?” And here she was afraid something had fallen between her bedsheets.
    â€œNo,” he snapped, reaching around her and pulling the door shut.
    â€œOkay.” Keep out. That won’t be a problem.
    She followed him downstairs, letting him out first so she could set the house alarm. The taxi she’d arranged for earlier was idling in their circular driveway. Nick waited for her before getting in.
    â€œYou should be happy about taking a holiday.”
    The private school he attended—one of South Africa’s popular and prestigious ones and the same one he’d attended before his parents were killed—gave its students ten days off in August. He’d complained plenty of times that one of his American classmates had told him kids back home got something like two and a half months off in the summer. How did parents over there survive that? How did parents survive, period?
    Nick shrugged and gazed out the window at the passing shoreline as they headed for the airport.
    â€œWhatever.”
    Tessa caught the driver glancing at her. Sympathy for Nick’s attitude? Or recognition of whose wife she was and curiosity as to where she was going? She wouldn’t doubt that half the drivers in their area answered to Brice. He tipped well, but he also had a great rapport with everyone. Which was why getting him to approve this trip had been so important. His approval meant less suspicion on his part and that alone would buy her time.
    Brice had seemed relieved when she mentioned taking Nick out of town for a week. If Tessa had noticed anything since Nick came to live with them, it was that Brice had less patience for kids than she did. He hadn’t been kidding when they’d had the infamous discussion about no kids right before they got married. But she loved Nick. He was her nephew...her blood. And Brice wasn’t solely to blame on the no-patience front. Nick was a handful. A slurry of teen moodiness thickened with posttraumatic stress. Yet Brice had welcomed him into their home. That’s why she was feeling morbidly guilty right now.
    She smiled at the driver and tried to act as relaxed as possible, fighting back tears as they passed the neighborhood of midsize homes where her sister had lived. She noticed Nick looking over and her heart broke for not being able to tell him that his “visit” to his uncle might end up being a lot more than a visit...and that he’d likely not see his old neighborhood again for a long time. She placed her hand on his shoulder and he shoved it off. His constant rejections hurt. So she wasn’t ideal substitute-mom material, but she was trying to do her best.
    It’s all going to be okay.
    All that mattered was getting Nick to Kenya and then getting as far from the boy as she could. Because sooner or later Brice would realize this wasn’t a vacation, and when he did, he’d be after her for answers...and there was no way she’d let Nick get caught in the cross fire.
    * * *
    M AC W ALKER HATED being played almost as much as he hated owing anyone anything. But everyone—including Mac—had a price, and saving Air