LITMIR.BIZ

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shifting the football to his other hand to draw his daughter to his side.

      Sophia had to give him credit; she might have actually believed the casual comment was nothing more than that if she didn’t know better. But she did. Her oldest brother still blamed her for taking off to Chicago and for the fallout she hadn’t intended to cause.

      But any defense Sophia might have made collapsed at the combination of love, pride and well-disguised worry that mingled in his gaze as he looked down at his daughter. “She’ll be in college before I know it.”

      Sophia’s heart clenched in sympathy for what Nick had gone through since his wife left, in guilt for her part in Carol’s desertion, and in a newly realized panic knowing she’d be feeling that same love, that same pride, that same worry soon for her own child. Like Nick, she too would be alone.

      Sophia swallowed hard, and it had to be her imagination that Jake stepped closer as if sensing her thoughts and offering his silent support.

      Crazy, she thought. If Jake could read her mind, he’d run the other way. Because she was still mad at him. Really, really mad.

      Mad enough to haul off and hit him. Mad enough to throw herself into his arms, close her eyes, and pretend the Jake Cameron she’d met in St. Louis was the real Jake Cameron …

      “Hey, Jake!” Her dad waved a barbecue fork in their direction. “How ‘bout you take over here and give me a chance to hug my little girl?”

      “You got it, Vince. Be right there.”

      Trying to keep her jaw from dropping at the warm welcome embracing Jake, Sophia shot him a sidelong glance he caught front and center. He stepped closer until she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. She’d lived with older and much taller brothers her entire life; she was used to their overwhelming breadth and height.

      But with Jake, it was … different.

      Intimidating and at the same time thrilling in ways she wished she could forget.

      “I’ve missed you,” he murmured, his deep voice tripping over nerve endings and raising goose bumps across her skin.

      Fury at her reaction as much as at his words reared, and Sophia sucked in a breath, sharp retort at the ready. But before she could say a single word, Jake caught the back of her neck, his fingers tunneling in her dark hair, and pulled her into a quick, hard kiss.

      She barely had the chance to register his taste, to respond to the press of his mouth against hers, to relive the memory of the kisses they’d shared in St. Louis. Kisses that slipped beneath her defenses, exploited her weaknesses …

      She drew in a second breath as she pulled back, still ready to blast him with her temper, still furious, but Jake had already stepped away.

      “Jake, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to have you here.” Vanessa Pirelli’s warm smile left no room to doubt the sincerity of her words.

      Seated across from Sophia’s mother, Jake worked on a smile of his own. The casual meal around the picnic table was nothing like the formal family dinners in the Cameron household. Her welcoming acceptance should have made it easier, but the whole experience of holding hands while saying grace, passing rolls across the table like lobbing softballs and carrying on four conversations at one time seemed like something out of a storybook.

      And of course every story had its villain, a role Jake had been fully willing to accept when he showed up unannounced at Sophia’s home. But instead of hurling accusations, her family had greeted him with open arms—literally—leaving him feeling off-balance and unprepared. He’d been ready to face the Pirelli family’s anger; their approval was unexpected … and undeserved.

      Still, he said, “I’m glad to be here, Mrs. Pirelli.”

      Glad to see for himself that Sophia had a family who loved her, who would be there for her and her child in a way only family could be. She might not have told them about the baby yet, but it was obvious Sophia’s child would have three doting uncles and one set of grandparents to spoil him rotten and to be there for anything he needed.

      “Oh, now, didn’t I tell you to call me Vanessa?” Sophia’s mother reminded him.

      “Yes, ma’am, you did.”

      His evasion didn’t get by the older woman, and her eyes crinkled in a smile, small lines forming at the corners, giving him a glimpse of how beautiful Sophia would look as she matured. Only Sophia certainly wasn’t smiling at him now.

      Sitting stiff and silent at his side, Sophia’s body language told him loud and clear she didn’t share in her mother’s welcome. But not even her anger and the obvious emotional walls stopped him from noticing the way her dark hair curled behind her ear to perfectly frame her delicate features. Or the way the afternoon breeze picked up the fresh vanilla scent of her skin. Or the heat of her body inches from his.

      When she reached out to pass the potato salad and brushed her arm against his, every hair on his body seemed to stand at attention—thousands of tiny divining rods guiding him to the woman at his side. A woman he’d told himself a hundred times since leaving St. Louis he was better off staying away from. Yet here he was, sitting by her side like a man who’d been out in the desert too long and yet somehow thought he could ignore the temptation of taking a drink.

      He hadn’t even made it five minutes before kissing her, Jake thought wryly, unable to resist putting his memory to the test to see if Sophia’s lips truly were as sweet and soft as he recalled. Even that brief taste told him what he’d already come to suspect in the days since he left St. Louis: memories were no substitute for the real thing. The real thing he’d found in Sophia …

      Jake shoved the thought aside. He wasn’t some starry-eyed romantic. He didn’t believe in love at first sight. He wasn’t sure he believed in love at all.

      His only experience with the painful emotion had been Mollie. At the time, he’d certainly thought he loved her and trusted she felt the same. But that day at the hospital, she’d made it more than clear how she really felt about him.

       You aren’t a family man, Jake. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be part of a family, but that’s what I need. That’s what Josh and I both need.

      And that was what Sophia needed, too.

      She needed her family to rally around her, and if playing her boyfriend made this reunion a little easier on her, well, he could fill in for now. He could take on the part until she found someone better suited. Much like Mollie had.

      Slipping back into a role that had become too familiar too fast in St. Louis, Jake returned Vanessa’s smile. “Sophia’s told me so much about you, and I couldn’t wait to meet you all.”

      “You’ll have to make sure Sophia shows you around while she’s here. Last time she was home, she didn’t do much more than hide away in her room.”

      “Sam!” his mother admonished, but whatever the reason for the sudden silence that fell over the table, Sam seemed as ignorant of its cause as Jake.

      “What?” the youngest of the Pirelli brothers asked. “I’m just saying.”

      “Can you blame her?” Drew slugged his younger brother on the shoulder. “She was probably hiding out from you.”

      Jake had already figured out that Sam was the joker, Drew something of a peacemaker, while Nick—Nick he had yet to figure out. The eldest Pirelli brother obviously adored his daughter and got along well with the rest of his family, but Jake sensed a tension between Nick and Sophia, a distance the family clearly talked around, as they did the absence of Maddie’s mother.

      “So, Jake, what is it you do?” Sophia’s father asked as he dug in to the potato salad.

      He knew from what Sophia had told him that Nick was a veterinarian, Drew a custom-home builder and Sam a mechanic. But Jake didn’t know what she’d told her family about him.

      Buying

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