Page 37 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

“What do you read?”

“Just about anything. I like romantic suspense or murder mysteries. Anything I can solve.”

He laughed. “Have you ever read Emma French?”

“I have,” she said. “One of my go-to authors for romantic suspense. I don’t read a lot of them, but I like her style. Steve Spencer is on my list, but I’m sure everyone has read him. Lots of others. Do you read Emma French?”

There was no way he could say Steve Spencer was Emma’s mother. The world thought Steve was a man and Melissa French wanted to keep it that way, but the family knew the truth.

“I’ve read Steve Spencer, but not Emma French. She’s a cousin though.”

“What?” she asked. “Seriously?”

“Her mother was a Bond before she became a French. Edward’s side of the family. So many generations removed, but she lives on the island.”

“I might go fan girl crazy if I saw her.”

He laughed. He wouldn’t say he could introduce them.

Or that maybe there’d be some family event coming up and he’d like to take her.

That would be pushing it.

“You could run into her on the island, though she’s a bit of a hermit and doesn’t leave her house much,” he said. “At least from what I’ve heard. I don’t talk to her all that much. Just what I hear through the family grapevine.”

“Guess you’ve got a lot of interesting things going on in your family.”

“I do,” he said. “But you don’t want to hear some of it.”

She laughed but said nothing else. Just continued to chop vegetables and monitor everything going on at once.

“Sorry if I’m being quiet. Just making sure I don’t cut myself.”

“I could fix it if you did,” he said. “Or get someone fast who could if it needed more than a bandage.”

She laughed. “I could do that myself.”

“Can I ask why you went to be a pharmacist? You said your father was a surgeon and your sister is in her residency doing the same.”

She laughed softly. “I don’t like blood all that much. I’m a daddy’s girl. Was one,” she said.

He reached his hand over and laid it on hers quickly. “You’ll always be one.”

“I will,” she said. “But I just couldn’t do it. Blood from a cut doesn’t bother me, but the thought of bones and muscles and blah.” She gagged and stopped talking. “See, can’t do it. Jordan wasn’t bothered by it. I’m glad the two of them had that bond. I had others with my father. We were similar in personalities.”

“So he was a quiet but confident surgeon?” he asked.

“He was,” she said. “I’m quiet and confident in my job, but not much else.”

“I think you are selling yourself short. You did just ask me to dinner. Or was that another one of those things trying to get out of your comfort zone?”

“Would you be offended if I said that I talked to Jordan today and she was giving me a hard time about going to dinner with you so quickly? She insists I don’t do anything with a guy until I’ve talked to them for weeks.”

Interesting.

Something he’d store away for another time.

“We have known each other a few weeks. And we’ve talked. That has to count, right?”

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