Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis Read Free Book Online

into the driveway of one that hadn’t. The garage door’s springs were broken. The owner said he was having a guy take care of it, and though the owner’s only living relative, a son, had offered to fix it numerous times, the offer had been firmly rebuked.
    Tough. Sawyer spent the next half hour doing it himself in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t be thanked. The grass needed mowing again as well. He stretched the kink out of his neck as he went for the ancient lawn mower on the side of the house. It was a stall tactic, and he usually wasn’t much for stalling, but he mowed the entire lawn and side yard, and finally, with nothing left to do, turned to the front door.
    Nolan Thompson stood in the doorway. Sawyer’s father was dressed today, which was an improvement over last week, when he’d faced Sawyer in his underwear. It was hard as hell to take the old man’s righteous anger seriously when it was delivered with plaid cotton boxers sagging over a body ravaged by alcohol and fifty-plus years of physical labor.
    “I told you I’d hired a kid to do this shit,” his dad growled in the same low, gruff voice that once upon a time had struck terror to the depths of Sawyer’s troublemaking soul.
    It’d been that way until the day he’d realized he was bigger and badder than his father. Instead of taking his punishment for whatever stupid thing Sawyer had done that day—and Sawyer had no doubt it had been stupid—he’d shoved back.
    He’d been sixteen. After that, the two of them had resorted to stony silence for Sawyer’s last year in the house. Contact had remained rare and estranged until Sawyer’s twenty-fifth birthday, which he’d spent in the hospital at his father’s side after Nolan’s first heart attack. That had been ten years ago. Now their visits were still spent in silence, but there’d been two more heart attacks and a new frailty in his father that Sawyer hated.
    Because it meant that every time Sawyer looked at him, he had no choice but to feel. Compassion, regret, guilt, whatever emotion bombarded him, he hated every minute of it. He looked around his father’s yard. “So where is this paragon of virtue you’ve hired?”
    “He’ll be here.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Look, if he said he’d come, he’ll come. He shows up on time, doesn’t give me attitude, and doesn’t rip me off.”
    Sawyer had stolen a twenty off his father’s dresser exactly once. He’d been twelve and an idiot, but he’d been twelve , for God’s sake. His father had never forgotten about it. But at least that infraction had been real.
    Yeah, Sawyer had been a rotten-to-the-core kid and an even worse teenager. But Jesus, he’d been working his ass off ever since trying to make up for it, which should count for something.
    It didn’t.
    Time had stopped for Nolan as far as Sawyer was concerned. “The garage door is fixed, so you can park in there again. And the grass needs watering.”
    Another gruff sound, maybe one of grudging appreciation, but that was probably wishful thinking on Sawyer’s part. He took a peek inside the house. It was a mess again. Odds were the housekeeper that Sawyer had hired was chased off by Nolan’s bad temper. Since the woman had also brought in the groceries, this meant his father was undoubtedly eating crap, not good with his restricted diet. “Didn’t Sally come this week?”
    “She’s out of town.”
    Bullshit. Sawyer brushed by his father into the house and was bombarded with unhappy memories. He checked the fridge—nearly empty. Pulling some money out of his wallet, he set it on the kitchen table and turned to leave.
    His father was blocking his way, eyes bright with anger and something else. Shame.
    Shit. “I’ll be back tomorrow with groceries and someone else to clean up,” Sawyer said.
    “Don’t bother. I have the kid.”
    “Fine.”
    “Fine,” Nolan snapped, then paused uncomfortably. “I, uh, have to get another angioplasty.”
    Sawyer’s own heart skipped