Page 59 of An Engagement for Erica

When he came out with shorts on, she realized how much muscle he had on his legs and had no clue about that.

“You’re staring,” he said. “Is there something wrong with my legs? Too much hair on them?”

Her eyes snapped up. “Sorry. Didn’t know I was doing that.”

“Just like you didn’t know your hips were pressing into mine?”

“Something like that. Do you work out? I guess I might have been admiring how toned you were.”

“Not a lot of fat on these strips of bacon.”

Her face turned bright red and he burst out laughing.

“I should have never told you that.”

“But you did,” he said, yanking her against his body. “And I’m glad I know.”

His mouth slanted over hers and all thoughts went out the window again.

20

SORDID FAMILY SECRETS

“Your father doesn’t come here often?” he asked. “How come?”

“I think he’s just busy more than anything else,” she said. “He works a lot and doesn’t get a lot of weekends off. It’s a place my siblings and I used more than him. Theo lived here for years.”

“And now he has a new house with his wife further away,” he said.

She opened the door to the place. They’d been in the garage where she’d parked and he came in after her, his car left behind hers in the driveway.

“He does. This house is much smaller than my mother’s home, but it’s still pretty big. The primary is on the first floor and it’s mine now. There are three bedrooms upstairs and Harmony has two of them. One for her room and another for an office. My father stays in the third when he comes.”

“Which is nice of him, since it’s his house,” he said.

“Theo and he argued over it enough and he refused to kick Theo out of a place he’d made home for a few nights to visit. Myfather was here for Labor Day. It was nice to see him. And it’s funny because as a child I wouldn’t have said that.”

Tucker frowned. “Did you not have a good relationship with your father?”

“It’s not that. He’s just not that much of a warm and fuzzy person. He’s always been so focused on his career. That is why my parents divorced. My mother wanted a lot more attention than he paid to her. He got sick of her nagging. And sorry, but he was right. She is a champion nagger and has to be in control at all times. When he left, it all landed on us.”

“Sorry about that. It’s better than your father being a drunk and drug user,” he said, smirking.

“I didn’t have it as bad as you and I would never tell anyone we had it bad. We had a good privileged life. I’d never say otherwise. But my mother wasn’t the warm and fuzzy kind of person either. Maybe that is why they married because they shared that almost as a business arrangement. We all learned to adapt. Theo had it worst. My mother was horrible about Daisy in the beginning.”

“Oh,” he said. “Do you want to share that?”

“I’d like to. Maybe you should know all my sordid family secrets too.”

“I doubt there is anything as sordid as your parent falling naked and high off a yacht at night and drowning because the crew thought he was in his room.”

“No,” she said. “Not even close. I’m going to change too. There is beer in the fridge if you want one. It’s from when my father was here.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said.

He walked into her kitchen and opened the fridge while she went to change out of her pants. She didn’t even put jeans on today like he had.

It’d be nice to see her a little more relaxed in her attire...somewhat since it wasn’t a suit.

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