But the boy had finally caught sight of him too. His eyes bugged. "Holy cow! Who's he?!" He spun toward Ellie. "Oh, wow. Is he Cassie's dad?"

Ellie's jaw began to fall open before she caught herself and snapped her teeth together. Then she groaned. "Of course,"

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Delinquent Daddy

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she muttered to herself, shaking her head. "I should've known you were involved in writing that letter."

Keller grinned, proud. "Well, sure. I found his address."

Boston and Ellie exchanged a glance. Boston looked surprised. Ellie was merely bone weary. She turned back to the boy and set her hands on her hips, taking on the aggravated mother look. " You found Montgomery Kincaid's address?"

"It wasn't hard." Keller gave a no-nonsense shrug. "All you have to do is pay thirty-nine, ninety-nine on people finders dot com and they just give you the address."

Ellie's mouth fell open. "And how did you pay for that?"

Keller started to look a little uneasy. Dipping his head, he mumbled, "My dad has a credit card on his dresser for emergencies."

"Keller!" Ellie sputtered. "Oh, my God."

But the boy was quick to say, "This was an emergency, Mama Ellie. Cassie was this close to finding her dad." He held up two fingers, stretching them less than an inch apart.

"But— What...how..." Ellie snapped her mouth shut and gaped openly at the boy. "What even made you two think Montgomery Kincaid was her father?" How had they gotten so close?

"It was in the magazine," he answered.

"The...what? What magazine?"

With a roll of his eyes as if he couldn't believe she could be so ignorant, Keller let out a sigh and trudged across the kitchen. He stood on his tiptoes and reached for a pile of magazines sitting in a basket on the counter. After digging 56

Delinquent Daddy

by Linda Kage

through them a moment, he lifted Vogue and showed it to her. The cover read, "Shannon's Out-of-this-World Marriage to Astronaut's Son." Ellie frowned at the picture of the famous model on the cover.

"Shannon March," Keller said. "Right here it says she married the son of a real-life astronaut. And you told Cassidy her dad was the son of an astronaut. There's not a lot of actual astronauts out there, you know," he added as if he were an authority on the subject. "So, it was pretty much a given this could be her dad."

Mouth falling open, Ellie turned toward Boston. "You married Shannon March?"

"My brother did," he murmured, frowning as he eyed Keller.

"Oh," she said. Wow. Her daughter's biological uncle was married to a world-known model. How amazing was that?

Boston eyed the magazine as he pushed to his feet and strolled toward it. A bug-eyed Keller handed it over as soon he reached for it.

"We read the article about her marrying Montgomery Kincaid," the boy said. "And when it said he went to the same college as you, Mama Ellie, then we knew...we just knew this had to be her dad. Because you said...you said you met her dad in college and he was the son of a—"

"I know what I said," Ellie snapped, irritated her own words had come back to bite her in the butt. But she'd never thought her daughter would turn into a mini Sherlock Holmes and actually get so close to finding the truth. Then again, she 57

Delinquent Daddy

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should've known better with a genius savant like Keller as her best friend.