Free The Sign of Seven Trilogy by Nora Roberts Page A

and crooked grin, the kind a woman wanted to take a testing nibble of.
    Before he could speak, someone hailed him, and those eyes of quiet gray glanced away from hers toward the end of the counter. “Be right back.”
    â€œWell.” Jeez, her pulse had actually tripped. “Alone at last,” she said to Fox. “So you and Cal and the as-yet-absent Gage Turner have been friends since you were kids.”
    â€œBabies, actually. In utero, technically. Cal’s and Gage’s mother got together with mine when my mother was teaching a Lamaze class. They had a kind of roundup with the class a couple months after everyone delivered the packages, and the deal about the three of us being born on the same day, same time came out.”
    â€œInstant mommy bonding.”
    â€œI don’t know. They always got along, even though you could say they all came from different planets. They were friendly without being friends. My parents and Cal’s still get along fine, and Cal’s dad kept Gage’s employed when nobody else in town would’ve hired him.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t anyone have hired him?”
    Fox debated for a minute, drank some of his beer. “It’s no secret,” he decided. “He drank. He’s been sober for a while now. About five years, I guess. I always figured Mr. Hawkins gave him work because that’s just the way he is, and, in a big part, he did it for Gage. Anyway, I don’t remember the three of us not being friends.”
    â€œNo ‘you like him better than me,’ major falling-outs or your basic and usual drifting apart?”
    â€œWe fought—fight still—now and then.” Didn’t all brothers? Fox thought. “Had your expected pissy periods, but no. We’re connected. Nothing can snap that connection. And the ‘you like him better than me’? Mostly a girl thing.”
    â€œBut Gage doesn’t live here anymore.”
    â€œGage doesn’t live anywhere, really. He’s the original footloose guy.”
    â€œAnd you? The hometown boy.”
    â€œI thought about the bright lights, big city routine, even gave it a short try.” He glanced over in the direction of the moans coming from one of the Alley Cats who had failed to pick up a spare. “I like the Hollow. I even like my family, most of the time. And I like, as it turns out, practicing small-town law.”
    Truth, Quinn decided, but not the whole truth of it. “Have you seen the kid with the red eyes?”
    Off balance, Fox set down the beer he’d lifted to drink. “That’s a hell of a segue.”
    â€œMaybe. But that wasn’t an answer.”
    â€œI’m going to postpone my answer until further deliberation. Cal’s taking point on this.”
    â€œAnd you’re not sure you like the idea of him, or anyone, talking to me about what may or may not go on here.”
    â€œI’m not sure what purpose it serves. So I’m weighing the information as it comes in.”
    â€œFair enough.” She glanced over as Cal came back. “Well, boys, thanks for the beer and the slice. I should get back to my adorable room.”
    â€œYou bowl?” Cal asked her, and she laughed.
    â€œAbsolutely not.”
    â€œOh-oh,” Fox said under his breath.
    Cal walked around the counter, blocking Quinn before she could slide off the stool. He took a long, considering look at her boots. “Seven and a half, right?”
    â€œAh…” She looked down at her boots herself. “On the money. Good eye.”
    â€œStay.” He tapped her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
    Quinn frowned after him, then looked at Fox. “He is not going to get me a pair of bowling shoes.”
    â€œOh yeah, he is. You mocked the tradition, which—if you give him any tiny opening—he’ll tell you started five thousand years ago. Then he’ll explain its evolution and so on