For Love and Family Read Online Free Page B

a little water if you have to.”
    Hunter shook his head and laughed to himself at his son’s antics. Then he returned to straightening up the living room.
    He knew that it wasn’t Terese Warwick herself that had Johnny so excited. The little boy didn’t know her, after all. It was merely the novelty of having someone come to stay with them.
    Hunter, on the other hand, was a different story. For him it was the woman he was looking forward to seeing again. And he was none too happy about it.
    In fact, wanting to see her again was what hadcaused him to drag his feet about calling her to arrange this visit.
    Wanting to see any woman hadn’t happened to him since Margee. It sure as hell hadn’t happened to him since Margee’s death.
    But with Terese Warwick it had happened. And it had Hunter feeling pretty unsettled. And confused. Why her, of all people? he kept asking himself.
    Of course, she didn’t seem anything like her sister. But maybe the difference between them was actually the problem.
    For all her money and high-class social circles, Terese still had a sort of girl-next-door thing going for her. And flashy, overly made-up, beauty-shop-perfect women—like Eve Warwick—put him off. Who wanted somebody who looked as if they needed to be kept on a pedestal and dusted once a week? Somebody who might as well have a hands-off sign posted on her forehead?
    But the girl-next-door thing? That had more appeal to him. Give him Terese’s long, thick ponytail over her sister’s helmet hair any day. That ponytail was the color of red oak and shiny and neat and clean.
    Give him those few freckles that dotted Terese’s pale porcelain skin, keeping her from being too perfect and putting a hint of mischief into her appearance. And there was no doubt that he preferred Terese’s pert nose to that surgeon-fashioned one her sister sported.
    Plus, Terese’s eyes didn’t need all that glitter andfake stuff on the lids, he thought as he tossed a few more of his son’s toys into one of the cupboards that lined a wall of the living room. Terese had eyes that were incredible on their own. Warm, sparkling, iri-descent, vibrant blue eyes, with lustrous dark lashes. He’d rather be looking into those eyes any day of the week than into those cold baby-blues of her sister.
    Oh yeah, given a choice, he’d vote for the natural, fresh-scrubbed beauty. And when it came attached to a tight little body with breasts that were just the right size…
    â€œGeez,” he muttered to himself in disgust, knowing he didn’t have any business thinking about her breasts. Not now and not the other ten dozen times he had in the last several days.
    It was just that something about Terese had gotten to him.
    But it wasn’t only the way she looked that kept coming back into his head to taunt him. Or the way she looked that seemed to set her apart from her twin sister. Terese also seemed sweet and kind and unselfish, though not in a doormat sort of way. After all, she’d stood her ground with her nasty sister and that was saying something.
    But at the same time, Terese’s sweetness and kindness and unselfishness had seemed natural, too. Innate. And bolstered by a strength of character her twin clearly lacked.
    And so there he was, Hunter thought as he jammed more toys into the cupboard and had to forcethe door closed. He’d taken two showers in one day, he’d gotten himself dressed up, and he was having problems holding down his own excitement at the prospect of Terese Warwick arriving on his doorstep any minute now.
    Excitement he was none too happy about at the moment.
    All it did was get him riled up for no good reason.
    And why?
    Because of the who and the when.
    The who being that she was Terese Warwick. Which meant that no matter how much appeal she might have, it came in the shadow of her sister and the fact that her sister was Johnny’s birth mother.
    And if