"Well, at least it was only ninety-five percent untrue. Wouldn't want her to lie to her mother."

He grinned.

"What?"

"You two. You work well together. And it's easy to see how much you love each other."

The words warmed her. "Yeah? Thanks."

"That's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about. See? I did have a reason for wanting to drive you. A reason other than just seeing you again, I mean."

"Oh." She licked her suddenly dry lips. "Why?"

"It occurred to me that Elena's never had two parents. I mean, that she remembers."

"Um, okay?"

"And Eli's never met either of you."

A sad smile touched her lips. "And I would love to meet him. I'm sure I'll come back. I'll try to come for a week before the end of the summer."

"That's one idea. I'm thinking along different lines."

"Oh. Okay. What?"

"Well, it seems to me that you and I have had some big responsibilities dropped into our laps."

"We have?"

"Sure. I mean, there are life things we need to be considering. We're a family now, Eva. Have you thought about that?"

She swallowed, realizing he was right. And she most definitely hadn't thought about it. Not the way he meant. As if they were a unit.

"Families have obligations," he said. "Sometimes awesome ones. Sometimes inconvenient ones."

Something in his tone caught her attention, and she crossed her arms tight across her chest. "Are you saying I'm running away?"

He took his eyes off the road long enough to look at her directly for one beat. "Well, aren't you?"

Her temper flared. "Now, hold on. I'm going on vacation. I've been planning it for ages. And in case you missed the memo, our daughter is an adult."

The anger, of course, was for herself. Because he was right. Elena was an adult. But she was a young adult, still in school, who'd just learned that her supposedly dead father was alive and that she also had a half-brother whom she had yet to meet.

And Eva was traipsing off to Vancouver?

Yeah, she really was running away. Why the hell hadn't she seen it?

"It's hard to figure out your own head sometimes," he said, after she told him all that. "Sometimes you have to look at it from someone else's perspective."

"Like yours?"

"Happy to provide you perspective anytime you want," he said with a seductive little grin.

She sighed and flopped back in her seat. "You realize what the biggest problem here is, don't you?"

"What's that?"

"You. You're what I was running away from."

Tags: J. Kenner Man of the Month Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net