Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

“At least she has a personality,” I said firmly.

“What, and you didn’t?”

I shrugged. “I had personas.” The perfect daughter, the perfect student. “Pretty boring. I’d take cursing goth kids any day.”

He groaned. “She’s dating some baby biker dude. Instead of going to college she wants to work in his sister’s tattoo parlor.”

“Well. I guess she won’t have to worry about student loans?”

“She won’t have loans. I’m paying.”

“Maybe she wants to be fiscally responsible.”

He shot me a look. “Yeah, that sounds like Anna.”

“It’s not exactly easy, having perfect older brothers.”

He raised a brow. “Which you know about?”

I shrugged. “Maybe not perfect. But I always felt second-best.”

“Why?”

“Oh.” Now I felt silly, because I hadn’t meant the conversation to come around to me, and I actively avoided talking about my family to anyone besides Cam. “My brothers are from my dad’s first marriage, and I think he kind of preferred them. Not a big deal or anything, he just didn’t know how to relate to me.”

He tilted his head. His hair, still straightened from his shower, was beginning to dry and curl. “Sounds like a big deal.”

Suddenly edgy, I jumped up and walked to the window. He had a view out the back of the inn, toward several cottages and the endless rolling hills and hedgerows. Lavender clouds rolled across the deepening blue night. “It really wasn’t. What about you? Where’s your dad?” A second after the words left my mouth, I remembered that his dad had to be gone for him to inherit Kilkarten. I turned to see him, my eyes widening. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

We were both silent, but neither of us looked away. I could feel the space of the room constraining, or his presence growing, until it was as though I could only see him. My head felt light. I broke contact first and headed back to the armchair, busying myself with settling back in. “Anna must have been little.”

“Seven.”

Wow.

“What’s that look for?”

I raised my eyes, startled at the question. “I wasn’t giving you a look.”

His smile contained a hint of skepticism. “Yeah, you were.”

Fine. “Sounds like you’ve been father-figuring your youngest sister and supporting your whole family for a long time.”

He let out a wry breath. “Lauren said about the same. She wants to ‘fix’ things while we’re here.”

“‘Things’?”

“Us. Our family.”

“How?”

He met my eyes again, with that same powerful intensity, and gave me a crooked smile different from the regular one he used to charm people. “I wish I knew the answer.”

I acknowledged the difficulty of that with my own wry smile. “How do you usually deal with problems?”

He watched me with a very odd, very aware expression. “Usually I smile a lot and people end up agreeing with me. Or liking me, so they alter things to go my way.”