Atlanta Heat by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online

coffee and tried to ignore the hurt.
    “They also have a daughter,” he said tightly.
    “A daughter who, as you said, rarely returns home. Look, Macey, we don’t have family reunions; sometimes we manage to catch dinner together if I’m there on business or they’re here to see the admiral about something. We aren’t tied at the hip.”
    “You don’t have to be tied at the hip to be a family,” he pointed out. “You don’t seem like the type of woman who would distance herself like that from family. You’re close to the admiral, but not your mom and dad.”
    Mother and father, not mom and dad. She shook her head.
    “This is really none of your business.”
    “I’ve met your parents,” he said.
    Emerson stared back at him directly, keeping her gaze cool. She didn’t want to hear this, but she had a feeling a family-minded person like Macey would have to see her actions in a less than complimentary light.
    “They’re cold as hell.” He sighed. “It’s hard to imagine you growing up with them. Tell me they at least loved you.”
    “They loved me.” In their own way. Bemused, irritated, often uncertain what to do with her, but they had loved her.
    His expression tightened, then seemed to clear as curiosity took over. “What was the one thing you always wanted as a child and didn’t get?”
    The shift in the conversation threw her off balance, had her answering before she thought.
    “A treehouse.” Regret shimmered in her voice because she couldn’t stop it. “I wanted a treehouse.”
    “Your parents owned a fifty-acre estate and you didn’t have a treehouse?”
    “Everything had its place.” Except her. She had never figured out where her place was there. “A treehouse didn’t fit into the scheme of things.”
    “Everyone needs a treehouse,” he said softly, rising from his chair and moving to her.
    Before she could move or avoid him, he was byher chair, his hand sliding into her hair, his lips stealing a quick kiss. “Don’t worry, Em, one of these days, I’ll give you a treehouse.”
    Sure he would. She shook her head and smiled at the thought as he released her and moved to get a cup of coffee for himself. She knew and understood promises and how easily they could be broken. Not just for children. She could have survived the broken promises as a child, gotten over them, gone on. But she had learned as an adult as well how easily even the most sincere promises were broken.
    “I’ll settle for the ability to return to my apartment. Do that for me, Macey, and you’ll have my eternal gratitude.”
    “That and more,” he stated, moving back through the kitchen to his computer. “I promise you, Emerson, I’m going to have that and more.”

F IVE
    HE WAS FALLING FOR her. Three days later Macey sat hunched over his computer keyboard and tried to make sense of his own tangled emotions.
    He knew he cared too much for her; hell, he had known that for the past two years. He dreamed about her, fantasized about her, and for the past two years hadn’t managed to find a single woman he wanted to fuck because none of them were Emerson.
    The problem was, he didn’t just want to fuck her. He wanted to give her treehouses.
    And now he wondered: who would take Drack? That was sad. He’d had Drack since he was a boy. Hell, he loved that cold-hearted reptile and would have laughed at the idea of giving him up because a woman was scared of him. But instead of laughing, his first instinct was to find Drack a home, because his heart, his soul warned him that an anaconda had no place within a family.
    Family.
    Geeze, the admiral would put a bullet between his eyes if he even suspected what Macey was thinking, wouldn’t he? Or had he already suspected it?
    And God forbid if Emerson should suspect. But the fact was, she belonged to him. Didn’t matter what the admiral thought about it, didn’t matter the price to be paid. Though he somehow suspected the admiral was a step ahead of him here.
    Emerson