Page 41 of Tempted By her Daddies

Like you have any right to tell her that she can’t roller skate!

“Umm.”

That meant no. She could have seriously hurt herself.

“Or run down the stairs!”

Instead of telling him to bugger off as she likely should, she just gaped at him.

He set her tea out along with some sugar and milk.

“Oh, these cups are so pretty!”

“Thank you. They were my great-great-grandmother’s.”

“Wow. That’s amazing. Are all these other knick-knacks from your family?”

Amusement filled him. His mother would be horrified to hear antiques called knick-knacks.

“They are. This house belonged to my grandmother, and she left it and her estate to me.”

“Wow, that’s nice.”

“Hmm, my parents didn’t think so. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’d always been a disappointment to them. Not manly enough. No charisma. Weird . . . quirks.”

“Like what?” she asked as she made her tea with a good splash of milk and . . . four sugars?

Yikes.

“Do you always take your tea like that?” he blurted out.

“Yes. Why? And what quirks? ILQ.”

“Um, that one baffles me.”

“I Like Quirks.”

“Do you? Well, I have a particularly challenging one. I have trouble touching people.”

“You do? You touched me.”

Yes, and he’d liked it.

“I did. I can do it. I just don’t always feel comfortable. But I really have trouble with people touching me.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“As you can imagine that was hard on my mother in particular who couldn’t understand why her own son abhorred her touch. She took me to psychologists and doctors, and no one could work it out.”

“So that’s just who you are.” She shrugged. “Did she not accept that?”

“No, she didn’t. I was made to feel like I was . . . defective. By my parents and sometimes, my brothers.”

Great. Now she was going to pity him.

Give him empty platitudes.

“What assholes!” She slammed her hand down on the counter. “Give me their names.”

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