Three Men and a Woman: Evangeline (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read Free

her words settle into his heart. He loved getting that question. And that she only asked him to write faster, not reveal his story. She was—grudgingly—willing to wait for it. “A fan. That pleases me immensely, Evvie.”
    She shrugged, likely covering for a blush. The deep vee of her little jacket—it was held closed with only one button, and he’d gotten a glimpse of nothing but a bit of lace under it—shifted and revealed a very pretty curve of breast. “Of course I’m a fan. I was your first, wasn’t I?”
    She was. His first fan. His first reader.
    “Tell me how it happened.”
    “That I got into editing? Well, it was natural, wasn’t it? After you guys got me reading, and you needed so much help with your sloppy first drafts.”
    He raised a faux-irate brow and made her laugh.
    “ Yes , sloppy. I can tell you I don’t envy your editor, and, no, you won’t entice me away.”
    He chose to believe the first of that was a lie—he had to think she’d love to have first go at his work. “You’re happy where you are?”
    She shrugged again, and it took a manful effort to keep his gaze on her face. “I work from home, and I love that.”
    “Where is home? You’re not still in Cartersville.” He’d gone by the trailer court once, a couple years back, just idly curious.
    “Keuka Lake. That’s really the story of how it happened. I know you remember Miss Victory—you include her in almost every dedication.”
    He nodded. Yes, in addition to his gratitude for the way the old English teacher had taken lost little Evvie under her wing, he owed her for bringing some discipline to his wild—not to use the word sloppy —writing. He’d had little patience for diagramming sentences back in the day, but the exercise had indeed served him well. Just as the strict but indulgent teacher had predicted.
    She’d seen the talent behind his rough work and, after Evvie, was his next fan.
    Briggs waited for Evvie to go on.
    “After graduation, I went part time to Genesee Community College. I was working, and so—”
    So she couldn’t go to school full time. Her mother had beat feet out of town and so she was on her own.
    “After I saw you—” She took a deep breath.
    “After Shep’s funeral,” he put in for her.
    They exchanged a look then, remembering very much. And then were interrupted by the arrival of their meals.
    “Yes,” she said softly, eventually, looking more at her dinner than at him. “After that. I was alone. The trailer had been repossessed.”
    Briggs humphed at that. More likely, it had collapsed.
    “Miss Victory retired that year.”
    “About time. She was old as dirt.”
    Evvie shot him a look, but she smiled with it. “She took me into her home. I had no way to complete my degree. But she took me in, and I transferred to Naz and got my B.A. in literature.
    “Just after I graduated—a very proud moment for both of us—Miss Victory had a stroke. I didn’t want to leave her, after all she’d done for me.”
    And Evvie had loved the old woman, Briggs could see.
    “So I took a job that I could do from home. There’s no reason, is there, that all editing couldn’t be done from home? I think it’s a bit pretentious of the big publishing companies to require their editors to work in house.”
    Like his, she meant. It added some gravitas, he supposed, to have a big, imposing building staffed with industrious workers dedicated to the process of achieving literary glory. Still, she had a point.
    “Maybe so.” But that topic didn’t interest him. “Miss Victory died a couple years ago.”
    She nodded, and he could tell it had been a true loss. Her gaze left his for a long moment, and then she recovered herself. “She left me her home.”
    There was still surprise in it, wonder, and gratitude. “It’s a sweet little Victorian with a wraparound porch. She came from vintners, and the house is the original farmhouse. We’re surrounded by vineyards and gorgeous views of mountains and