Daniel Read Online Free Page A

about the nursery. He was really getting to
be a hermit. He didn’t like it much, but if they would simply stop for a minute
and listen. For months, he’d been telling them that he liked being single.
    The drive didn’t take long. He’d been by
this property several times a week since he and Jesse had opened their
practice. Still, he hadn’t noticed the large gate or the tall fence around the
property. Lucky for him the gates were open, and he drove on in.
    The house startled him. He had no idea
what he’d expected, but the lovely one-story ranch hadn’t been it. He pulled up
in front of the house as a kid, the one from the greenhouse, came around the
corner with a pair of dogs chasing after him…the kind of dogs that weren’t pets
so much as killers with four legs. The three of them stopped dead when Daniel waved.
The dogs growled once and took off in his direction.
    The dogs looked less friendly the closer
they came at him. Daniel was sure they were going to tear out his throat when
he heard a sharp command to heel. He would have done it to, if he had a clue
what the hell it meant. He looked up as O’Reilly came around the corner of the
house. And she was spitting mad apparently.
    “What are you doing here? And how the
hell did you get in?” He didn’t have a chance to answer her questions as she
fired them off like a pistol. “You can get whatever you’re selling out of my
drive and get the fuck away from here.”
    “I’m Daniel Hunter of the—”
    “I don’t give a good fuck if you’re the
savior himself. I said to get the fuck out of here.” She turned to go toward
the house while the kid, Benny, stood there watching them both.
    “I have an appointment with Mr. Harlequin,
the owner of Harlequin Stoneware. I’m here to speak to him about some classes.”
    She turned back to him, and his heart
stopped. Christ love a waddle, she was gorgeous. He watched her come toward him,
and he felt the irresistible urge to whimper. A woman in a tee shirt was one of
his favorite sights.
    “Mom.” They both looked at Benny. Mom?
She was his mom. That wasn’t possible…could she be the wife of the old man he’d
heard about from Kasey and Joey on his way over here? Life sucked if she was. “That’s
the man. The one I was telling you about.”
    She looked…he thought she looked
crestfallen. But it only lasted for a few seconds. Then it was gone. She turned
back to him and glared.
    “You lie. You do not have an appointment
with him or anyone else that lives here. Get out.” Her voice was low, but he could
hear the emotion behind her words.
    “How do you know?” he asked when she
turned away again. “He might have made the appointment today without telling
you. My brothers don’t tell their wives all kinds of things.” They usually got
them in trouble, but that was beside the point.
    Daniel didn’t know why he didn’t just
fess up. He liked watching the way her face told every single one of her
thoughts. He wondered how she would look beneath him and stopped himself from
that thought. He did not mess with married women, and never women with kids. Too
many strings that could tie you up.
    “You don’t have an appointment, because,
you moronic fuck-tard, I’m O’Reilly Harlequin. And I think I’d remember making
an appointment.”
    When she turned from him this time, he
watched her and Benny go inside the house. The dogs, now relaxed and about to
fall asleep, ignored him. He moved to the car slowly.
    She was the old man. The potter wasn’t a
man, but a woman. A beautiful, vibrant woman with a kid. He drove down the long
drive and had to wait for the gate to open to allow him out. He’d bet his last
dollar that he’d never find this gate open again.
    He drove down the street and started to
laugh. Finally, he had to pull over, his mirth too much to go on. The one woman
he might want to spend more than ten minutes with hated him passionately, and
she had the one thing that he didn’t want more in this