LITMIR.BIZ

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hung from her slender shoulders to brush the waist of the soft, beltless pair of denim jeans she wore. They were cuffed at the ankle to reveal her small bare feet, her toenails painted a translucent pink. Through the windows, the same shade was washing the sky as the sun began to rise over the mountains.

      Jace stared at the woman, the same feeling every time he saw her rising like those vapor ghosts on the lake. It went beyond wanting her—and he wanted her very much. Maybe because she’d made him smile and laugh and, most important, take himself a little less seriously.

      Just as her presence enlivened the house, for those two nights at the inn, she’d made him feel a bit more human.

      Shay suddenly broke the silence. “When are you going to tell London?” she asked, her back still turned.

      He blinked. She’d been aware he was standing there...admiring? Clearing his throat, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Tell her what?”

      “About the change of plans.” She turned and carried a full mug of steaming coffee in his direction. His hands automatically reached for it when she held it his way. “About the upcoming summer session at the boarding school.”

      “Uh...” For someone with such bright hair, her blue eyes could be so damn cool, he thought. They stabbed at him now like icy shards. “I’m not sure.”

      She returned to retrieve her own thick white mug, where bold red letters proclaimed Size Matters. Jace glanced at the side of his own. Biker Chick. Huh.

      “If you’re uncertain about that,” she said, gazing at him over the rim of her coffee, “perhaps it isn’t the right thing to do.”

      He took a swallow of the hot dark brew. “It’s the right thing to do.” Because he was the wrong kind of man and it was certainly the wrong time—as in, too late—to try to forge a real relationship with the teen.

      Shay shrugged one shoulder. The wide neck of her T-shirt slipped, revealing the lacy edge of a pale pink bra strap. Jace’s belly, and then his groin, tightened. Hell. It took just that small glimpse of intimate apparel and semiprivate flesh to get his full sexual attention.

      Tightening his hold on his mug, he glanced away, trying to distract himself and the instinct that was clamoring at him. Snatch her up, it said. Throw her over your shoulder.

      In his bedroom, he’d toss her to the mattress, strip her bare, then fist his hands in her hair as he insinuated himself between her thighs. She’d be wet for him, and hot, and he’d lose himself in her and all the problems plaguing—

      “What’s everybody doing up so early?” a new voice asked.

      Jace jolted, then glanced over his shoulder to see London shuffling into the room, the hem of a plaid flannel robe flapping around her ankles, her starkly dark hair hanging in her face. Even half-asleep there didn’t seem to be any child left in her.

      What did you expect? he asked himself. Teddy bears and Barbie dolls?

      “What can I get you?” Shay asked now. “OJ?”

      The girl tipped up her chin so her gaze could meet the tutor’s from behind her swathe of hair. “Espresso?”

      “I don’t think so,” Shay said, shaking her head. “Green tea? Or I can make you a fruit smoothie.”

      London spun around and it was then Jace noticed she was wearing slippers shaped like strawberries. Was there some little girl left inside her, after all? “I’m going back to bed,” she said around a huge yawn.

      “Classwork starts at eight,” Shay called after her.

      Her mumbled reply sounded sleepy.

      “Why the hell do you suppose she bothered to get up?” he asked, bewildered.

      Glacial blue eyes shifted once more to his face. “My guess?” Shay said. “To make sure you’re still here.”

      Shit. Jace didn’t know how to reply to that.

      “It’s why you should explain what’s going on right away,” the tutor continued. “Tell her about the school, the new timetable.”

      He stared into his coffee. “Maybe it would be better if it came from you.”

      She made a sound that was half laugh, half snort. “You’re not paying me enough for that, big guy.”

      Double shit. He wasn’t. “I could—”

      “Save your breath. This is all on you.”

      “All right. Fine.” And he knew she was right. What he didn’t know was exactly how to explain it to London. Still, after a quick breakfast and a detour to his room, his determination got him to the upstairs study area in a timely fashion.

      Or not so timely, he realized, when he saw London in front of a computer, already perusing what looked to be some complicated math problems on the desktop’s monitor. It was 8:05 a.m.

      He shoved his hands in his pockets as the girl and her tutor looked up. “At it already?”

      Shay had an essay in front of her, a red pen poised over it. “London loves her quadratic equations.”

      The teen rolled her eyes—once again circled with that black somewhat disturbing makeup. “I don’t love anything.”

      Jace had no adequate response. But he couldn’t just walk away, either. “Do you mind if I hang out awhile?” His gaze went to Shay. “I’ll keep quiet.”

      “Or not,” she murmured, sending him a significant look.

      Ignoring it, he pulled out a chair on the same side of the table as his daughter. While she continued to work, he drew a science textbook toward him and began turning pages.

      At the scratch of pencil on paper, he looked over. London was intent on the numbers she’d transferred there. The computer monitor had changed to screensaver mode. Photographs popped onto the screen like rabbits from a hat before being sucked down again and another moved into view. Jace stared at image after image of his ex-wife.

      After a couple of minutes, he became aware of London. Her head was up and she was as focused on him as he’d been on the screen. He floundered for something to say.

      Finally, he cleared his throat. “Those are good. Very good likenesses of your mother. Did you take them?”

      The girl nodded.

      “She was a beautiful woman,” he said. Though she looked more mature in the photographs than he remembered, of course, there was still that knockout figure, the beautiful flow of light brown hair hanging down her back and her vivacious smile.

      “Is that why you married her?” London asked. “Because she was beautiful?”

      His grin felt rueful. “It certainly didn’t hurt. I was twenty-one.”

      “She was older, right?” the teen said. “Like, a cougar.”

      “No.” He laughed and he glanced across the table to gauge Shay’s reaction. She didn’t appear to be listening, her focus still on the essay, the red pen moving along. “Your mother was only five years older than me. I met her when I was doing some moonlighting at her house—where she lived with her father.”

      London tilted her head. “‘Moonlighting’?”

      “A second job.” He closed the science textbook and shifted his chair to more fully face the teen. “I had a day position, but I also made extra money by doing some building on the side...weekends and evenings.” Hal Olson, the construction firm owner he worked for Monday through Friday, had promised if Jace could get some cash together he’d let him buy into a slice of one of the company’s new projects. Canny as all get-out, but already feeling the ill effects of the disease that would finally take his life, the old man had tapped into Jace’s ambition and unflagging drive.

      For a long time he’d thought those

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