Signs of Love Read Free Page B

loose with all the words he’d kept locked up while listening to Dan and Beth explain what had happened to Genevieve. The habit of swearing he’d picked up while in the military had been something he’d worked hard to overcome through the years, but in that moment of emotional…weakness, it was what seemed to fit the situation. Only it didn’t make him feel any better. If anything, he felt worse.
    Forgive me, Lord.
    He pounded on the steering wheel with a fist, still needing some way to vent his anger and frustration. There had to be something he could do. He liked Dan and believed the man thought he’d done all he could for Genevieve, but Justin needed to know he’d done all he could do for her himself. He just didn’t want to believe that his beautiful blue-eyed, blonde-haired niece was going to be sentenced to a life of silence.
    He couldn’t accept that.
    He just couldn’t.
    And the woman who had been there to help them adjust could just go away. They wouldn’t need her. He would find a way to make sure Genevieve could hear again if it was the last thing he did. Tragedy had already rocked their lives. He couldn’t let this be one more.
     
    Justin stalked into the boardroom at the BlackThorpe building the next morning. He looked around the room, noting that all members of the team were present except for Than Miller.
    “Morning, Justin,” Marcus Black said, his voice deep. Though he didn’t have Justin’s height, the man carried himself in such a way as to dominate any room he entered.
    “Marc,” Justin said with a nod of his head.
    Marcus’s lips thinned at his use of the shortened version of his name, but Justin didn’t give a flip. Most people didn’t understand the relationship between them, and that was fine by him. The fact that it was none of their business seemed to be the only thing he and Marcus agreed on anymore.
    Justin dropped down into the chair next to Melanie, knowing she shared his impatience with these weekly meetings. The two of them spent most their time out of the main BlackThorpe complex and hated being dragged in each week.
    Melanie stared at him, her eyes going wide. “Wow, Justin. Everything okay? You look…rough.”
    Justin rubbed his fingers over his chin, knowing the day’s growth of facial hair when he was usually clean-shaven gave him that rough look. Unfortunately, after sleeping in later than usual, he’d skipped shaving in order to be on time for the meeting. He’d take care of it when he got back to the compound once this infernal meeting was over.
    After he’d gotten home the night before, Justin had spent a lot of time on the internet trying to learn more about hearing loss in children. The results had not been encouraging and without having more information about the tests that had been done so far on Genevieve, he’d been searching somewhat blindly. The one thing that had stood out to him though was the large percentage of cases of unexplained hearing loss where the cause was unknown. That didn’t sit well with him at all. How could he fix things for Genevieve when he didn’t know what was wrong?
    “Everything’s fine,” he told Melanie. Never one to share much of his life outside of work, he certainly wasn’t going to start now.
    If he had shared anything with anyone, it might have been Melanie, but he preferred to keep his personal life separate from his job. He had a congenial relationship with most members of the BlackThorpe team except for Marcus, but he rarely socialized with them.
    Melanie gave him a skeptical look, but she didn’t say anything further as Marcus started the meeting.
    “First up, as you know, Than is currently over in the Philippines. We’ve just received word that there is a super typhoon closing in on his location. We are monitoring the situation and will make arrangements to evacuate him and Lindsay Hamilton if it becomes necessary. In the meantime, he has been in contact via the sat phone and doesn’t seem to feel that