Restored (The Walsh Series Book 5) by Kate Canterbary Read Free Book Online Page A

was never a time in the history of Sam and Tiel that things simply worked out well .
    We needed strategy, we needed timing, and we needed to stop with "Sunshine, I just want to come all over your tits right now."
    That was how I ended up sifting through bulk bins at an herb and spice market in Somerville when I was supposed to be harassing Shannon. My portion of today's plan involved me stopping by her apartment, and cajoling her into joining us for lunch. She could ignore calls and texts, but she couldn't ignore a Saturday morning pop-in.
    Shannon and I weren't close, and I wanted to change that. Our relationship was rocky from the start, and plenty of that was my fault. I didn't want to put Sam in the position of having to choose me over his siblings, and if that meant I was inviting her along for holiday weekends when she was sad and lonely, or conspiring to get her mimosa-drunk on the weekend, I was doing it.
    But first, I was getting my hands on some red clover and racking my brain for the rest of my great-grandmother's special fertility tea recipe. When the kettle was on the stove and those dried flowers were in the strainer, everyone knew it was time to start knitting baby blankets because that tea never failed.
    The recipe was the one gift my great-grandmother gave at bridal showers. Sometimes there was a loaf of scratch-made olive bread with the tea recipe, but only if she really liked you.
    Without that recipe and with my luck, I'd flub the ingredients or ratios, and end up with hair on my chest or an accidental cure for indigestion. But that wasn't going to hold me back. Nope, I was full steam ahead with my smelly tea and a new app on my phone to track the comings-and-goings in my lady regions.
    Once I'd navigated my way to Shannon's neighborhood, it took another twenty minutes to find a parking spot, and I was far behind schedule. Things didn't get much better. There was the odd moment of finding a very wet, very large, very tattooed, and very nearly naked man behind Shannon's door—he looked like a mighty fine way to recover from a breakup—and then the splendor of babbling that information to Andy and Lauren before discovering that Shannon wished to keep it private.
    How I was supposed to know that Tattooed-and-Toweled was meant to be a secret was beyond me. Through it all, I pissed off my future sister-in-law again , guzzled four too many mimosas, managed to eat none of my lunch, and had to call in a favor to get my drunk ass home.
    I was leaning beside a trough of butternut squash, alternately eyeing the phallic shape and laughing at my own quips when I spotted him near the main entrance.
    "Hey," Riley said as I approached. My head was still swimming with light, fizzy bubbles, and I was working damn hard to keep from wobbling.
    "Hi," I said, "and thank you for coming so quickly."
    "Yeah, no problem. I was at the office, so I was close," he said. His hand landed on my shoulder, steadying me, and he leveled me with a skeptical look. "Everything okay?"
    I nodded, and the sensation in my head was slow, reminiscent of shaking an Etch A Sketch. "I can't keep up with them," I confessed. "I don't know how those women can drink like that, and on a Saturday afternoon, no less. It's like they run on liquor and nonfat yogurt, and Sephora samples."
    "Don't forget about the cupcakes." Riley tightened his grip on my shoulder as he laughed. "Where are you parked, Punky Brewster?"
    I led the way, wobbling and nearly wiping out on a cracked segment of the sidewalk, and handed over the keys to Sam's Range Rover when it came into sight. Without a word, Riley turned the ignition and merged into the afternoon traffic.
    "You're not going to ask?" I studied him while we were stopped at a light near Faneuil Hall. "About me texting you in the middle of the day to drive me home, and not calling Sam instead? I'm sure I dragged you away from something fun."
    "At the office ?" Riley shook his head. "Nope."
    "I've had a lot of champagne,