Free Every Girl's Secret Fantasy by Robyn Grady Page A

disgrace. Now he only had to look at his brother to be reminded of how badly he’d stuffed up three years ago. It aggravated the bejesus out of him.
    And Nick knew it.
    â€œMeg was a little older,” Phoebe was saying, “and a lot wiser. When my mother fell for a man passing through, Meg was there to comfort her.”
    She stooped to pluck a flower while Pace put two and two together. The man had been Phoebe’s father.
    â€œEver try to find him?” he asked.
    Twirling the stem, Phoebe gazed off at some distant point and lifted her chin. “Other people might want to track down their biological links. I don’t need to go there.”
    Pace thought he understood. “Guess it wouldn’t change anything.”
    â€œI’m over wondering about what happened to him. But there are some things I’d change if I could.”
    â€œLike?”
    â€œLike my mother never giving up on the idea that one day he’d come back to her. She was driving to see him the night she died. It was a wet night. A tired truck driver nodded off and…” She tossed the flower away. “Well, she never came back.”
    Pace’s stomach fell. Her mother had died in a car accident? She’d had reason enough to be shaken earlier, when their car had spun out. Having lost her mother that way must have made that near miss all the more harrowing.
    The line between her brows eased. “But I had my aunt. She loved me like a daughter, and I’ve always looked on her as a parent. I don’t know what I’d have done without Meg.” Her mouth tightened almost imperceptibly. “Sometimes I wish I could tell my mother that.”
    Pace had to swallow to dislodge the stone in his throat. Not only had she been dumped by her father, Phoebe also felt abandoned by her mother—a woman who had been responsible for a small child but had driven off on a wet night to visit an ex who’d no longer wanted her.
    His own father might have worked too hard, but Pace knew he’d slogged those long hours not only for his own sense of satisfaction but also for his family’s sake, for their security. Pace’s grandfather had been an alcoholic who’d squandered the family budget on booze and terrorised the home at night in drunken rages. Nicholas Senior had wanted different things for his children. That was why he’d put in those hours. Expected so much.
    One day he hoped Phoebe could forgive her mother. Carrying around a truck full of spite for someone you ought to love was heavy work. He should know.
    Setting the hamper down, he gave a soft smile. “Let’s have that cocoa and pie.”
    She glanced around and nodded. “The perfect spot.”
    They stood beneath a massive dome of lime-green foliage supported by a giant trunk and a tangle of exposed roots. This monster must stand fifty feet high. A hundred to one it was the swing-tree from that photo in the kitchen he’d looked at.
    He laid out the blanket. “What kind of tree is this?” He’d never seen one like it.
    â€œNo idea.” Kneeling, she extracted the Thermos and cups from the hamper. “Definitely not a pine. Obviouslynot a gum. In spring its branches are covered with these amazing fluffy white flowers.”
    Scooping her legs at an angle beneath her, Phoebe poured two steaming cups, then handed one to Pace as he hunkered down beside her.
    â€œYears ago I’d tell myself this tree was magic. That it had grown here on this very spot, overlooking this part of the stream, just for me. Every year, when the blossoms were full enough, the wind strong enough…”
    Pace could imagine. “There’d be a massive white carpet?”
    â€œAnd a snowstorm of flowers floating all around. I’d close my eyes…and dream.”
    Her eyes drifted shut as an angelic smile lifted the corners of her full-lipped mouth.
    Pace’s mesmerised gaze swept over her. “What would you