Harlequin - Jennifer Greene by Hot Touch (read full novel txt) 📕

far chairs and slunk down low and quiet. They’d been in the hot seat. They didn’t like it. It didn’t get better with age. “Something that involves making serious money. And more participation in the community.”

“Well, actually, Mom, I make a ton of money. I’ve been investing for years.” Fox shot his brothers a look. How fast the traitors dove into the lasagna. Next timeyou need help, I’ll be in Tahiti. “And as far as participating in the community, I’m working directly with kids. Or I was. How else could I possibly participate more productively?”

“You could be a senator,” his mother said firmly.

“You would wish that on me? A life in politics?” He added,“No.”

“Well then…if you haven’t got any other plans on the burner,are you thinking about teaching this coming Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

fall? As far as I know you still have an active contract, don’t you?”

God, she was sly. Other moms were, well, sweet. His was trickier than a con artist. She wanted him to rejoin life again. She wanted him to care about work and life and himself again. Except that even for his mother—and God knew he loved her—he couldn’t imagine going back into a classroom.

When he failed to answer, Georgia Lockwood pounced on the reason they were all together.

“Furthermore, you haven’t told me anything about this woman Bear and Moose keep talking about. I don’t understand why she’s coming here, and I don’t understand why you’re involved with her.”

“She didn’t have to come here. She just offered to explain the whole program thing to the family. And I’m not involved with her.”

His mother looked at him over the top of her delicate gold-wire rims. “Fergus, don’t think I just fell off the turnip truck.”

Neither brother, on the other side of the table, even breathed. They just kept shoveling in the lasagna.

“Trust me, Mom. I never thought that.”

“A masseuse.” Georgia rolled her eyes. “Comeon. I realize that you’re an unmarried man, that you have…needs. People don’t wait like they used to. I may not agree with how things have changed, but I can at least understand it. I would be perfectly happy to hear you have a young woman in your life onany basis.”

“Mom—”

“I won’t be judgmental. You don’t have to ever worry about that.”

“Mom—”

“I would like grandchildren. I admit it. None of you seems to be moving in that direction. I blame your father for making you all so independent and…rowdy.” She sighed. “But never mind that. The point is in principle, I’d prefer grandchildren coming from a two-parent family and our last name—”

“Mom!”

“—however, if there’s no other way I can get them, you can just bring them home in whatever form they come. I won’t say a word. Not a word.”

Fergus shot his brothers a look that would have fried an ice cube. They’d blackmailed him into this whole deal—setting him up with Phoebe, then conning him into being there when Phoebe presented this program thing. And now where were they? Taking in mom’s lasagna like vultures but not helping him worth beans. “Mom, get it out of your head. She’snot a date. Not anyone I’m seeing that way—”

Precisely at that moment they all whipped around at a knock on the door. And there was Phoebe—who’d obviously poked in her head when she couldn’t rouse anyone’s attention any other way.

When she stepped in, shock numbed his tongue. She looked nine months pregnant.

A second later, of course, he realized that it wasn’t her stomach, but somethingon her stomach making that huge lump. A baby. A real live baby. All swaddled in some kind of papoose carrier that was strapped to her tummy.

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Fox recovered his breath and started to stand up and greet her, but never had the chance. His mother took one look at the baby and surged toward Phoebe like a human tidal wave, her eyes suddenly brighter than diamonds. “Well, you obviously have to be Phoebe! You didn’t tell me she liked babies, Fox. Isn’t that nice? Come right on in, dear, and I’ll get you a plate. I’m Mrs. Lockwood, but you feel free to call me Georgia. If you don’t want lasagna, could I talk you into some coffee or sweet tea? I was just telling the boys, how wonderful it was that you’d involved Fergus’s whole family in this, um, program…”

Fox took one look at Phoebe’s face and felt his heart sink. Her friendly smile looked forced and frozen.

She must have heard what he said—about not being a date, not being anyone he was seeing. She’d probably even heard the deprecating comment his mom had said about masseuses. Hell and double hell.

She had no way of knowing that he’d just been trying to divert his mother from giving her the third degree…and now, she ignored him completely as she walked in. She greeted his mother and then crossed the room to give each of his brothers a kiss.

His brothers.

Both of them.

Got the kisses.

Not him. She ignored him as if he were a puppy puddle.

“Why, no one told me you were bringing a baby, dear.” Her mom descended on Phoebe as if a long-lost relative had suddenly shown up. So much for a prejudice against masseuses. Put a baby in the picture, and Georgia was now happy to treat Phoebe like a goddess.

“Actually, she isn’t mine. But I work with babies, and I’ve got this one for the night. I didn’t think anyone would mind if I brought her. I mean, I only needed a few minutes to—”

“Are you kidding? Of course it’s all right that you brought her.” More beaming smiles from Georgia. “So you work with babies, do you?” A fierce look at her three boys. “No one told me that, either. Sit down, sit down.”

Phoebe shot him a look then, but what that flash-gash of a look was supposed to mean, he didn’t have a clue. A knife suddenly ripped into his side. It had started this morning. Another teensy