Ten Acres and Twins by Kaitlyn Rice Read Free Book Online Page A

“It’s just another source of amusement for the twins.”
    Wyatt immediately started bouncing and batting at colorful knobs. “You were just ready to play, weren’t you?” she crooned.
    Opening a cabinet drawer, she pulled out a couple of toys and tossed them in front of Rosie, who propped herself up on sturdy arms to grab a set of plastic keys.
    When she dropped them, they produced a clacking sound that must have pleased her, because she snagged them right back up and began hitting them repeatedly against the terracotta tiles.
    â€œIf I can find a big enough apartment, I could run my business from there,” Jack said as Abby returned to the table. “There’s bound to be something suitable in town.”
    â€œOr we could both move in here,” Abby suggested, wondering even as she said it if she was completely insane. “Thishouse has plenty of room for an office, and we could switch off duties so we’d both have time to work.”
    â€œYou mean we’d live together as roommates?” Jack asked.
    â€œOf course,” she said, trying with all her might to make the suggestion seem like no big deal. Even though it was. A big deal.
    â€œI hadn’t thought of that,” he murmured, staring at her with a bemused expression. “I could set up my office here easily enough, but don’t you work at a flower shop?”
    â€œMy parents own a flower shop in town,” she corrected. “I work at a garden supply warehouse, but I was thinking of quitting, anyway. I could pay my share of the bills with the profits from the cut-flower business.”
    â€œHmm,” he said, pushing out his bottom lip and toying with the whiskers underneath. “I like this idea more and more. The babies would have both of us around for a year and by the end of that time they’d be easier to manage.”
    â€œUm-hmm,” Abby said, worrying about the idea more and more. Could she and Jack actually live here, together?
    He might not know her from a garden of weeds, but she was painfully aware of his vitality. Always.
    She also knew he led a pretty active social life. Would he want to bring his women here? She began to imagine a revolving door of various women, coming in and out of the farmhouse and cooing at the babies before they vanished into Jack’s room to coo some more.
    â€œSounds cozy,” he said, breaking into her angst.
    â€œDoesn’t it, though?” She feigned composure, but her alarm grew exponentially as her idea hurtled from impetuous to barely conceivable to likely. And remained, all the while, quite impossible.

CHAPTER THREE
    A BBY HAD HAULED seven loads of her belongings past the burned-out front porch light before she finally decided to change it. She had just dragged a kitchen chair outside and perched on top to make the adjustment when her new neighbor, Sharon Hauser, hollered from inside. “Donation box, or new location?”
    Sharon’s matronly figure filled the doorway. She held a bean-pot lamp on one hip, and Wyatt on the other. Her usual smile was missing as she stared at Abby’s precarious pose.
    Abby held up the bulb and light cover, and chuckled when her friend’s big, gummy smile returned. Though Sharon had at least fifteen years on Abby, she was on the same wavelength. Sometimes words weren’t necessary.
    Abby finished the job and hopped down. As she carried the chair back in, she said, “I asked you here to help with Rosie and Wyatt. I can finish unpacking.”
    Sharon jiggled both baby and lamp, prompting a happy squeal from Wyatt. “Shush,” she told Abby. “Scrap or keep—that’s all I need to know.”
    Abby knew not to argue. She squinted at the lamp. “Keep,” she answered. “Put it on the table beside the sofa.”
    Sharon swept the lamp and the giggling Wyatt off toward the living room, and Abby headed off in the other direction to cart the chair back to