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

‘Correctamundo,’ she said, doing her best Fonz impression. ‘It’s cool. I’ll just work it out for myself. In fact I want to work it out myself. Only then will I be able to prove my worth and convince the producers of Mystery Family Trees to hire me.’

‘Except you don’t have a single lead.’

‘You think? I’d place all my twenty million dollars on a bet that Frances knew what happened. I’m betting that’s what they fell out about. And I’m guessing Frances wished she’d given my mother more support and has regretted not doing so ever since. Hence the letters.’

‘It’s a possibility… But Frances wasn’t a prude or a stickler. She wouldn’t have cared about her daughter becoming a single mother.’ He glanced up. ‘What’s your plan?’

‘To read Frances’s letters and see if she makes any mention of it, or see if there’s some clue in them. Other than that… She must have an address book somewhere. I could ring her friends…tell them who I am. Maybe they’ll agree to meet with me. Someone will know what happened back then. They always do.’

He stared.

She stifled the urge to roll her shoulders. ‘What?’

‘You’re going to all this trouble for a job?’

‘It’s a good job.’ She hitched her chin at his office. ‘This looks like a good job too—seems to me you’re getting to call a lot of your own shots. What lengths would you go to to keep it?’

He huffed out a laugh, as if acknowledging the hit. ‘Okay… The thing is, Frances didn’t have many friends. If she did before I knew her, she’d lost touch with them by the time my mother and I moved here.’

A four-year-old kid going through the kind of upheaval Owen had been would’ve noticed everything. He would’ve kept watch and noted every person who entered the building, working out who belonged and who didn’t. He’d have kept watch for the father who scared him. Her heart burned at all he must’ve gone through.

‘I do know the few people she did keep in touch with, though. And I remember the names of those she occasionally talked about from the good old days.’

He did…?

He leaned back slightly. ‘I’ll make a deal with you.’

‘What kind of deal?’

‘I’ll do whatever I can to help you find out who your father is…’

Her heart leapt. He was smart. He knew how to put a puzzle together and he had inside information. She’d be crazy to refuse his help.

‘And in return?’

‘If you decide you’re going to donate your inheritance to charity…’

‘Yes?’

‘Will you sell the apartment block to me first, rather than donating the building lock, stock and barrel?’

She stared. ‘You can afford to buy it?’ Just exactly how good was this job of his?

In the next moment she dismissed the thought. If he had that kind of money he wouldn’t be living in a basement apartment—not even one as nice as this.

His eyes had turned opaque. ‘There’s a co-op I know that would be interested in taking it and its current residents over.’

A charity? It was funny… Yesterday she wouldn’t have thought he was the kind of man to concern himself with the down and out. Today she could see how wrong she’d been.

‘I’m not asking for a discount—you’d be offered the market value.’

It was a no-brainer. ‘You have yourself a deal.’

‘Or,’ he continued, ‘if you decide to keep your inheritance but sell the building—’

‘You’ll have first dibs.’

‘Thank you.’

They shook on it.

‘A party!’ She leapt to her feet as the inspiration occurred to her. ‘That’s what I’ll do. I’ll throw a party for everyone. A block party. And then they’ll all like me. Just you wait and see.’

* * *

‘So what is she like?’

Owen glanced at his mother as they passed into Washington Square Park through the western entrance. Sixteen-year-old Lissy trailed along behind, dragging her feet and looking bored in the way that only a teenager could.

‘She seems nice enough.’ They stopped to watch a game of chess in action. White Knight moved to C4 and he could see at a glance how he could win the game in three moves if he were playing black.

‘And all the letters Frances sent?’

They walked on. A squirrel scampered across the grass, all twitchy motion, and he started to feel twitchy too, though he had no idea why. ‘It appears she knew nothing about them. It was Donna who intercepted and returned them all.’

‘That makes a strange kind of sense.’

It did? He stared at her before swinging around to find Lissy had fallen even further behind and had started talking to some guy who was way too old for her. And who was eyeing her up in her short, short skirt like a Rottweiler would a piece of porterhouse.

He slammed to a halt. ‘Lissy!’

With an eye-roll, she gave the guy a wave before continuing towards them. ‘Spoilsport,’ she muttered, drawing up on his other side. And then she rolled her eyes. ‘Relax… I know him, okay?’

‘How?’ he demanded, and winced. He didn’t mean to sound so damn censorious, and he could’ve kicked himself when her face closed up and she didn’t bother answering. ‘Look, Lissy, I’m sorry. It’s just—’

But he was talking to thin air. Lissy had hurried on towards a small group of girls.

His mother shook her head. ‘When are you going to learn, Owen?’

The mild reprimand made him feel even smaller. But, damn, his little half-sister had turned into a ball of sarcastic prickliness over the last year. The sunny-natured kid who’d once adored him was long gone. She worried the heck out of him. She was boy-mad, and the clothes she wore were designed to attract the attention of every male in a ten-mile radius.

He ground his teeth together. The kind of attention from the kind of guy that had a brother’s every protective hackle rising.

They were moving in the direction of the fountain in the middle of the park, with the familiar shape of the Washington Square Arch up ahead on their left, when he saw Callie and Barney seated