Midnight Sons Volume 3 Read Free Page B

here, he didn’t feel inclined to share his woes. More than likely, Ben would side with Mariah the way his brothers had.
    “If you’ve got a problem, spit it out,” Ben said.
    “You going to charge me?” Christian asked jokingly.
    “Nah, I’m just trying to sell a little coffee.”
    Ben probably sold more coffee than some of those all-night diners in Anchorage, but Christian didn’t say so.
    “If you’ve got something on your mind,” Ben pressed, “best thing to do is get it out.”
    “It’s nothing.”
    Ben’s laugh was skeptical. “My guess is it involves Mariah.”
    Christian glared at the older man. “What makes you say that?”
    The cook lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Whenever I see you frown, it usually has to do with her. After all, you’ve been complaining about Mariah for over a year.”
    “Not that it does me any good,” Christian said with ill grace. “According to everyone else, the woman walks on water. Is there something wrong with me?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.
    “She’s a sweetheart, Chris.”
    “Not to me, she isn’t.” She might be as wonderful as everyone said, but Christian doubted it. “We can’t seem to get along,” he mumbled.
    “Have you ever stopped to consider why?”
    “I have, as a matter of fact,” Christian said. “I read an article in one of those airline magazines—oh, it must’ve been three or four years ago. It was about a man who walked from one endof the continental United States to the other. Took him months. People from all over asked him what he’d found the hardest.”
    Ben frowned. “Are we still talking about Mariah?”
    “Yes,” Christian insisted. “The writer who was doing the interview suggested the hardest part must’ve been the heat of the desert or the cold of the mountains.”
    “Was it?” Ben asked, obviously curious now. He folded his arms and waited for Christian to respond.
    “Nope.”
    “You sure we’re still talking about Mariah?”
    Christian ignored the question. “After deep thought, the man gave his answer. The most difficult thing about the long walk had been the sand in his shoes.”
    “The sand in his shoes?”
    “Yup. And that’s what’s wrong between Mariah and me.”
    Ben’s face broke into a network of lines as he frowned again, and Christian could tell he assumed Mariah had been pouring sand in his shoes. “It’s the little things about her that drive me nuts,” he explained. “The fact that she ruins my coffee every morning. The way she loses things and just…irritates me.” Christian paused, then said grudgingly, “I’m sure she’s a perfectly capable secretary—or would be for someone else. But she hasn’t worked out for me.”
    “Sawyer doesn’t seem to have a problem with her.” Christian had heard this argument from Ben before; he wasn’t surprised to be hearing it now.
    The door of the café opened just then, and he glanced over his shoulder and saw Duke. The other man’s eyes narrowed as he caught sight of Christian.
    “What’s this all about?” Duke demanded, waving the note Christian had slipped into his mailbox.
    “I’ll be flying Mariah into Fairbanks on Saturday,” Christian told him calmly. He didn’t expect the other man to argue, since he was the boss.
    “ I offered to do it,” Duke said.
    “I know, but there are other, uh, more important things I need you for.”
    “You’re sending me out on a wild-goose chase and you know it. I could make the flight into Barrow any time next week, and all of a sudden you decide I have to do it Saturday.”
    Christian wasn’t proud of his little subterfuge, but his justification was that he didn’t want Duke and Mariah furthering their romance on company time. What they did on their own time was entirely up to them, he told himself righteously. But when it came to Midnight Sons…that was another matter.
    “You seem to think I’m interested in her,” Duke said angrily.
    Christian’s hands