Mischief 24/7 Read Online Free Page B

still have joined Teddy in his private-investigator business or would you have pursued another dream?”
    Jade felt a stab of regret, then quickly pushed it aside. “Sure, Court, there was something else I wanted to do. I wanted to go out West and be a cowgirl. Right after I was the first female astronaut to step on the moon. One small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind. Come on, let’s get back to work.”
    “Stay where you are,” he said, and something in his voice told her he wasn’t going to let her get away without giving him a straight answer.
    “Why, Court?” she asked him, nearly pleaded with him. “Why this question and why now? What I want, wanted, has nothing to do with what happened then or with what’s happening now.”
    “True enough. But someday this is going to be over, one way or the other. What are you going to do then, Jade? Run the agency by yourself?”
    She shook her head. She’d wondered when he’d get around to asking this particular question.
    “No, that’s not possible. Teddy was the heart and soul. I was just the nuts-and-bolts person, working the computer and hardly ever going out into the field. I don’t have… I don’t have his flair. The Sunshine Detective Agency is officially out of business.”
    “Leaving you free to go out West and be a cowgirl or fly to the moon. Which will it be, Jade?”
    Did he have any idea how much he was hurting her? Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away as she cleared the counter. “Neither. I suppose I’ll have to find a new dream.”
    “Or tell me the real one,” Court said, finishing his sandwich. “I’m guessing ‘chef isn’t on the top of your list.”
    Jade smiled at his attempt to lighten the moment. Obviously he did know he was hurting her. Yet he kept on pushing. Maybe if they’d talked more before they’d married, they wouldn’t have fallen apart at the first obstacle. Maybe…
    “You’re not going to stop, are you? You’re going to push at me and push at me until I tell you what you think you want to know.”
    “That’s the general plan, sweetheart, yes,” he said, following her back into the living room. “Is it working?”
    She stopped and turned to face him, surprised that he had been walking so closely behind her. “A doctor. I thought I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up, all right?”
    Court just looked at her, his expression unreadable. “What kind?”
    Jade sighed. “What do you mean, what kind? A doctor doctor. Okay, so I thought I wanted to be a pediatrician,” she said quietly. “From the Christmas I was six and got a play medical kit and practiced on all our dolls. And on Jessica and Jolie, whenever they’d let me. It’s all I’d ever wanted. And then our mother took a hike and I had to have other priorities. Now I’m edging into my thirties and too old to think about years of medical school, specializing, going through an internship and residency. A dream, that’s all it was back then, and I’ve put it away. Happy now?”
    “No, I can’t say that I am,” Court told her as he reached out a hand and gently stroked her cheek. “A pediatrician. Because you love medicine and you love kids. Ah, baby, it still hurts, doesn’t it? All these years later, and it still hurts.”
    She longed to melt against him, feel his arms tight around her, his strength supporting her as she let go of some of her grief. For Teddy. For everything she’d lost. “I told you, Court, medical schoolwas only a childish dream. I’m too practical to live in dreams. I needed… I wanted to help Teddy.”
    “Because he needed you. Because he relied on you. And you let him steal your dream.”
    “No, that’s not true!” Jade bristled, probably because she’d sometimes thought the same thing. “My mother was gone. She didn’t care enough about me…about us all, I mean, to stick around. So maybe I needed him, too. Maybe I needed to feel indispensable to someone. Did you ever think of that? Don’t