Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

an historian.’ She spread her hands and kinked an eyebrow. ‘See where I’m going with this?’

‘That mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.’

But one corner of his own mouth lifted as he said it, and then his gaze lowered to her lips and time seemed to stand still. The murmur of a sighing breeze brushed through her, transporting her somewhere warm and sultry, like a tropical beach. Doors firmly shut inside her cracked open a fraction and—

Owen snapped away and swung back to his computer. She blinked, the warmth inside her icing over as the present crashed back.

Keep talking. Don’t let the silence stretch. Pretend nothing happened.

Nothing had happened. And nothing was going to happen.

‘So, my plan is to put together a little video of me uncovering my own family tree to send in with my application.’

She was sure she didn’t imagine him pushing several inches away on the wheels of his office chair before turning back towards her. The expression in his eyes, though, was alive with interest, and she could almost see him joining the dots.

‘So the discovery of your grandmother…?’

‘Has opened heretofore unknown doors.’

‘And the research you’ve been doing at the New York Public Library…?’

‘Has been to trace my family history. Which, I have to say, has been pretty straightforward. I’ve been able to go back five generations. I’ve hunted out locations I can visit to add colour to my personal documentary. And there’s the possibility of a skeleton in the closet, with a younger son mysteriously missing in the eighteen-hundreds—“missing” as in I’ve not been able to find any further records of him yet. I suspect the family shipped him off somewhere to hush up some scandal. I also suspect, given enough time, I can get to the bottom of it.’

He stared at her. ‘That’s a good plan. Actually…it’s inspired. It should land you the job for sure.’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Except my area of expertise is Australian history, rather than personal or family history. But research is research, right? Regardless of the topic, the skill-set is the same.’

‘I’d have thought so—especially if you can showcase those skills in action.’

She slumped. ‘The thing is…’

He leaned towards her. ‘What’s the thing?’

‘While I might be finding it easy enough to trace my mother’s side of the family…’

‘Yes?’

The grey of his eyes looked like smoke—all misty and mysterious like a Scottish moor she’d like to explore.

‘Callie?’

She snapped back. ‘The problem is I’ve absolutely no idea who my father might be.’

‘What, nothing?’

‘Nichts. Nada. Nothing. My mother refuses to talk about him, and his name isn’t on my birth certificate. Something really bad must’ve gone down.’

‘But this is your father. Everyone has the right to know who their father is.’

‘You think so?’

She was less convinced. It didn’t stop her from aching to know where she had come from, though. She hitched up her chin. Besides, there was the job to consider. She was determined to do everything in her power to win it.

‘Of course they do. Even if it’s just to access a medical history. That stuff can be important.’

‘But what if he’s violent—a criminal? What if he beat my mother up and raped her? I can’t see how me knowing that will help anyone.’

He rubbed a hand over his face.

‘And even if he didn’t…’ things inside her hardened ‘… I just know he has to be a nasty piece of work. What I do know is she loved him.’ The kind of heartbreak her mother had evidently suffered only came from the deepest love…and the deepest betrayal. ‘And, as I was born only four months after my mother emigrated to Australia, I’m thinking it’s a fairly safe bet that he’s American.’

Owen nodded.

‘I’m guessing that when she told him she was pregnant he wanted nothing to do with her or a baby.’ But of course she had no proof of that.

‘Or perhaps she loved him so much she left to protect him from a scandal? Maybe he was someone important?’

‘Or already married.’ She surveyed him for a moment. ‘You said you and Frances liked to watch Law and Order. Does that mean you enjoy a good mystery?’

‘I must do. I work with computer code. It’s a lot like trying to put the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Does your mother know what you’re trying to do?’

‘I haven’t said as much, but… She knows me. She knows I’ll dig. I haven’t told her about the job yet, or how I plan to win it.’

He rested his elbows on his knees, his eyes gentling. ‘Callie, don’t you think if you told her how important this job is to you she’d tell you the truth?’

He smelled like warm cotton and talcum powder, and something homemade baking in the oven.

‘You’ve been watching too many sappy rom-coms,’ she teased, to hide the way her pulse had quickened.

Breathing him in felt nourishing in a way the tin of soup she’d heated up for her dinner last night hadn’t. She battled a bolt of pure temptation. It would be so easy to lean across and kiss him.

She shot to her feet to pace around his office, in an attempt to distract herself from the shape of a mouth she had a feeling would now figure prominently in her dreams.

‘You don’t want to distress your mother?’ he asked.

‘She’s just become engaged.’ She glanced over her shoulder to smile at him. ‘I’m so pleased for her. I’ve never seen her so happy.’ She traced a finger along a square glass case that held a signed ball—a baseball, she supposed. ‘You really like these Mets, huh?’

‘More than life itself.’ He paused. ‘And your mother?’

She was going to be facetious and say she was pretty sure her mother wasn’t a Mets fan, but she bit it back and returned to her seat instead. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen her truly happy in a romantic relationship.’

Understanding dawned in his eyes. ‘And you don’t want to mar that by bringing up the