The Marine's Family Mission. Victoria Pade

don’t like Northbridge or you don’t like the church here?”

      “Both.” His tone was flat again, definitive, but he didn’t explain why he disliked his hometown—and the church here. Instead he went on without revealing anything. “I need to see all the damage to the farm so I know what we’re up against. Why don’t we do that tomorrow?”

      “Sure. But we’ll have to take the kids out with us—Sundays are the hardest time to get babysitters and Mom couldn’t set up one for tomorrow.”

      He was back to making no comments, but he did raise an acknowledging chin.

      That seemed to be the end of his efforts because he took a breath, exhaled and said, “If there’s nothing else to do tonight, then I think I’ll turn in.”

      Emmy again gave what she was getting and only nodded, watching him as he went toward the door to the basement.

      And while the first thing she thought was that he still had a great butt, the second thing to register again was his limp.

      “Uh...” she said.

      He stopped and turned halfway around to look at her.

      “Are there things you can’t do around the farm?” she asked with a slight lowering of her gaze to his leg.

      “No.”

      Once more his tone was flat, definitive, and this time with a warning not to ask him that again.

      So okay, she wouldn’t explore it.

      She only said a curt “Tomorrow, then.”

      And for that she received nothing, not even another raise of that sculpted chin of his before he went to the basement door and finally disappeared down the stairs.

      Oh, this is going to be loads of fun, Emmy thought, trying all over again to resign herself to living and working with the guy she no longer had even the slightest illusion of any rapport with.

      Which was good.

      No illusions that he liked her was good.

      So why did the reality of that rub her so wrong?