Sea Swept by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

through her window, she dreamed of one day moving to such a place. Country lanes and tractors. A view of the bay and boats.
    She’d need to save up, to plan, but one day she hoped to manage to buy a little house outside of town. The commute wouldn’t be so hard, not when driving was one of her greatest personal pleasures.
    The CD player shifted, the Queen of Soul to Beethoven. Anna began to hum the “Ode to Joy.”
    She was glad the Quinn case had been assigned to her. It was so interesting. She only wished she’d had the chance to meet Raymond and Stella Quinn. It would take very special people to adopt three half-grown and troubled boys and make it work.
    But they were gone, and now Seth DeLauter was her concern. Obviously the adoption proceedings couldn’t go forward. Three single men—one living in Baltimore, one in St. Chris, and the other wherever he chose to at the moment. Well, Anna mused, it didn’t appear to be the best environment for the child. In any case, it was doubtful they would want guardianship.
    So Seth DeLauter would be absorbed back into the system. Anna intended to do her best by him.
    When she spotted the house through the greening leaves, she stopped the car. Deliberately she turned the radio down to a dignified volume, then checked her face and hair in the rearview mirror. Shifting back into first, she drove the last few yards at a leisurely pace and turned slowly into the drive.
    Her first thought was that it was a pretty house in a lovely setting. So quiet and peaceful, she mused. It could have used a fresh coat of paint, and the yard needed tending, but the slight air of disrepair only added to the hominess.
    A boy would be happy here, she thought. Anyone would. It was a shame he’d have to be taken away from it. She sighed a little, knowing too well that fate had its whims. Taking her briefcase, she got out of the car.
    She hitched her jacket to make certain it fell in line. She wore it a bit loose, so it wouldn’t showcase distracting curves. She started toward the front door, noting that theperennial beds flanking the steps were beginning to pop.
    She really needed to learn more about flowers; she made a mental note to check out a few gardening books from the library.
    She heard the hammering and hesitated, then in her practical low heels cut across the lawn toward the back of the house.
    He was kneeling on the ground when she caught sight of him. A black T-shirt tucked into snug and faded denim. From a purely female outlook, it was impossible not to react and approve of him. Muscles—the long and lean sort—rippled as he pounded a nail into wood with enough anger, Anna mused, enough force, to send vibrations of both into the air to simmer.
    Phillip Quinn? she wondered. The advertising executive. Highly doubtful.
    Cameron Quinn, the globe-trotting risk-taker? Hardly.
    So this must be Ethan, the waterman. She fixed a polite smile on her face and started forward. “Mr. Quinn.”
    His head came up. With the hammer still gripped in his hand, he turned until she saw his face. Oh, yes, the anger was there, she realized, full-blown and lethal. And the face itself was more compelling and certainly tougher than she’d been prepared for.
    Some Native American blood, perhaps, she decided, would account for those sharp bones and bronzed skin. His hair was a true black, untidy and long enough to fall over his collar. His eyes were anything but friendly, the color of bitter storms.
    On a personal level, she found the package outrageously sexy. On a professional one, she knew the look of an alley brawler when she saw one, and decided on the spot that whichever Quinn this was, he was a man to be careful with.
    He took his time studying her. His first thought was that legs like that deserved a better showcase than a drab navy skirt and ugly black shoes. His second was that when a woman had eyes that big, that brown, that beautiful, sheprobably got whatever she wanted without saying a word.
    He set