Sweet Home Colorado (The O'Malley Men) Read Online Free

Since
he doesn’t need you, what do I have to do to sweet-talk you into restoring this
place for me?”
    What was she saying? Only a moment ago she was dreading
spending any time with Jack for fear he’d discover her secret and now she was
practically begging him to take the job!
    Jack scratched the inside of his elbow again.
    “That offer of a cure is still open, if it’ll clinch the
deal.”
    Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really doing here,
Gracie?”
    “Grace,” she corrected. “I want
this house restored.”
    “And then what?”
    “And then what, what?”
    “Stop talking in riddles. Are you going to stay—or are you
heading back to Boston?”
    “You mean now?”
    “Yes. Now. And then when the place is restored, are you
flipping it, never to return to Spruce Lake?”
    “My life is in Boston.” No way was she staying in this
backwater where everyone knew everyone else’s business and the sidewalks were a
death trap for expensive shoes. If Jack took the job, she wouldn’t have to hang
around Spruce Lake supervising. She could get out of there, away from Jack, away
from any fear that he’d discover her secret.
    “Then I suggest you go back there. I’ll help you find another
contractor who won’t mind putting his heart and soul into restoring a place only
to have it sold off.”
    “I’m not selling it, Jack. It has to stay in the family. That’s
a promise I made to Aunt Missy.”
    Before he could respond, she said, “I’m going to travel around
Europe for the next couple of months.” She wondered where that had come from. In
truth, Grace hadn’t given much thought to anything the past couple of days, not
since little Cassie Greenfield died.
    Her patient’s death—one of too many—had been the catalyst for
Grace’s decision to throw everything in, get away from Boston and dying children
and an ex-husband about to remarry and all the people who wanted to remind her
of that while trying to set her up with their cousin, or brother or—heaven
forbid—their uncle!
    Just because Edward had been more than twice her age didn’t
mean she was looking for another older man. It
didn’t mean she was looking for another man, period! Edward had been a far from
satisfactory husband or lover. But she’d married him in her first year of med
school, when he was already a well-respected neurosurgeon. She’d craved the
respect and financial security marrying Edward would bring. She’d basked in his
compliments and ignored the thirty-year age gap—the age gap that meant he didn’t
want any more children. He had two daughters and a son by his previous wife.
They were all horrible to Grace—as was his ex-wife—whenever they happened to
cross paths at social functions.
    When Cassie Greenfield, a little girl who’d fought so hard and
so bravely—like so many of her patients did against cancer—had died, something
had died inside Grace. Cassie was the same age her daughter, Amelia, would be
now. Her and Jack’s daughter.
    The guilt she felt at having given up a healthy child, and the
cumulative effect of treating so many who weren’t healthy, had come to a head
that day.
    Grace’s love of medicine and her belief in herself, that she
could cure all the hurt and pain in the world, were shattered. She’d needed to
get away, regroup, maybe think about another medical specialty. One that didn’t
involve dying children.
    There was a good reason she’d chosen to specialize in
pediatrics—to atone for her sins. The guilt of giving her baby away bit deep.
But the real sin she’d committed twelve years earlier was in not telling Jack—of
not giving him a chance. That was the one she really needed to answer for. How
she could even start to do that, Grace had no idea.
    Jack scratched his elbow again. She knew that what he was
suffering from was something she could easily cure. With no chance of Jack
dying.
    “What do you want from me, Jack?” she asked.
    His eyebrows rose speculatively.
    “Apart from