Her Summer with the Marine: A Donovan Brothers Novel (Entangled Bliss) Read Free Page A

to be reminded of. He had her out of that house, and he was keeping her out. After risking his life in a country where he didn’t speak the language and where every doorway, every car, every passerby was a potential threat, his dad didn’t scare him. Let Jeb Donovan come after him. He wouldn’t mind a confrontation that turned physical.
    But his mother would. And his mother would also be his dad’s target. Jeb would never confront a man. Only a defenseless woman and three scrawny boys. That’s why he’d kicked Finn and his brothers out as soon as they got old enough to stand up to him, and why all three of them had entered the military. They’d had no money. No choice. Though his dad had tried to break them, he’d created three very strong enemies.
    He rose from the sofa. “Let’s go get ice cream.”
    She laughed. “Really? In the dead of night?”
    Her comment reminded him of Ellie already wanting to go to bed at seven o’clock. Lord, she was even prettier than she had been in high school. He wondered if she was as sassy as she used to be, and his heart skipped a beat. There was just something about their competition that always turned him on. Giving in and finally doing it had created one of his favorite high school memories. And now she was back…and in a way, they were competing again.
    He tackled and subdued a surge of lust that heated his blood, and told himself to forget about Ellie as he led his mom to the garage door. “It’s not the dead of night. Besides, I heard the town no longer closes up shop at ten. We could go bowling if you want to.”
    She gasped. “I’ve always wanted to bowl.”
    “Well, this is your lucky night.”
    They strode into the garage and climbed into his Range Rover. The genuine smile on his mother’s face, an expression he’d never seen until he’d moved her out of his dad’s house six weeks ago, caused his mouth to tighten. As God was his witness, he would never let her go back to his abusive father.
    If that meant cajoling Ellie McDermott into selling her family’s funeral home…well, he’d cajoled her before.
    And if he remembered the scene in the back of his old, battered Buick correctly, they’d both won.
    …
    Ellie woke the next morning in the bed she’d slept in until she left for college, and she groaned. The thought of having to deal with the funeral home almost made her pull the covers over her head.
    On the one hand, the Tidy Whitiez bonus would support her dad long enough that she’d have time to get the funeral home running at peak efficiency again. But she’d gone online and researched operating a funeral home, and she wasn’t qualified. She didn’t have a license, hadn’t taken mortuary sciences in college. She could be the “accountant” and manage things behind the scenes, but she’d have to hire someone to embalm—someone to be the face of the business.
    Plus, she’d have to do most of the Tidy Whitiez ad work here in Harmony Hills, and once a week or so, drive back to Pittsburgh to lead the team and make her presentations.
    Which meant double work. Lots of traveling.
    On the other hand, the bonus, added to whatever Finn offered for McDermott’s, might keep her dad in a personal care facility for a decade. No traveling back and forth. No living in Harmony Hills, a town full of people who’d made a sport out of gossiping about her mother.
    But God only knew what Finn would offer. Probably peanuts.
    She flipped the covers over her head in dismay, then whipped them off again.
    This was not the time to wuss out.
    She had a decision to make and she would make it.
    She slipped off her boxer shorts and tank top and showered. With freshly washed hair and wearing jeans and a clean tank top, she walked into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. As it brewed, she looked around. The apartment wasn’t in as bad of shape as she’d expected from seeing her dad’s desk. But as she ambled through the blue living room, French provincial dining room,