Yep, minor sting.
After parking in the driveway and getting out, Eve glanced back to see a man lifting a girl from the backseat of the SUV, laughing up at her as he swung her high before setting her carefully on her feet on the sidewalk.
Her own feet declined to move. So, okay, it was dark, but the streetlight was only half a block away, and unless her eyes were failing her, this guy was absolutely gorgeous. Long, lean and movie-star handsome.
He took the girl’s hand and they started up the driveway to where Eve was planted in their way.
His eyebrows rose as he took her in and drew the girl—had to be his daughter—to a stop. “You must be Eve,” he said, in a voice just gritty enough to be sexy aside from his looks.
“I— Yes. Are you, um, a friend of Seth’s?”
Or, horrors, a relative of the Lawsons she somehow had never met? Because, oh, God, he could have been Bailey’s brother. Blond and beautiful. As was the girl, whose pale blond hair was French-braided and whose face was delicately pretty.
“He didn’t tell you I’d be here? I’m Seth’s partner. A detective with the sheriff’s department,” he added. “Ben Kemper. This is my daughter, Rachel. Rachel, meet Eve Lawson.”
“Hi,” the little girl whispered shyly.
Eve’s smile came easily. “Nice to meet you. And your dad. What say we go in before we all freeze? Looks like my parents are already here.” No way could she ask where Rachel’s mommy was.
“I hear Bailey’s a good cook,” he said behind her, as she started for the porch.
“She is. Lucky for Seth.”
He chuckled. “Yes, it is. If he’s like me, when he’s on his own most of his meals come out of the freezer case at the grocery store.”
“Tut-tut. Haven’t you ever wanted to defy the sexual stereotype?” She smiled again at his daughter, softening her voice. “Would you like to ring the doorbell?”
Rachel would. She lifted a pink gloved hand and pushed the button, then jumped at the sound of a ding-dong within. A moment later Bailey let them all in.
“Eve!” Her pleasure appeared genuine.
Eve leaned in to hug her despite the touch-me-not air that usually only Seth violated. Eve had noticed that even their parents hesitated before embracing their daughter. Bailey had excellent reason to be repelled by most physical contact, but she returned this hug with enthusiasm. Maybe she was getting better at the family thing.
Then she turned her smile on Ben and his daughter. “You must be Rachel. Thank you for coming. Ben talks about you all the time, you know. We’ve all been dying to meet you.”
Sounded as if Ben was quite the buddy. Closer to Seth and Bailey than Eve was.
As she stepped inside, she made a face nobody else would see. There was her inner bitch. Her initial reaction to her adoptive sister’s return had pretty well guaranteed both Bailey and Seth were wary around her. And, really, she was still ambivalent about how good a friend she wanted to be of theirs. Her tie with Bailey was more fictional than anything, considering they were “sisters” who had never met until last summer, when Eve was twenty-eight and Bailey twenty-nine. Why bother even pursuing a relationship so illusory?
Maybe because, despite herself, she liked Bailey? And because they had more in common with each other than either did with their parents?
Eve unwrapped her scarf and unbuttoned her coat. When she started to shrug out of it, she was startled to realize someone was helping. Ben Kemper was apparently a gentleman. He was free because Bailey already had Rachel’s pink fleece gloves in one hand and was tugging on the sleeve of her pouffy purple parka. His fingers were cold, which had to be why a brief touch on her neck sent a shiver through her.
“Thank you. Your daughter’s coat is prettier than mine,” Eve teased.
He laughed, deepening creases in his lean face. Eve was embarrassed at how her body warmed and softened just looking at him. At maybe six feet, he was tall enough to tower over her five foot four—okay, five foot three and a half if she stretched. Classically handsome, Ben had been blessed with perfect bone structure, tousled blond hair that glinted gold in this light, and dark blue eyes.
“I don’t know about that,” he murmured. “I think red is your color.”
Red was undeniably her color. With her dusky skin and black hair, she’d look ridiculous in petal pink or lilac. Admitting as much hadn’t come easily. Like most little girls, she’d wanted everything pink. Which she’d been denied. Because Hope had loved pink, Eve had always believed. Her bedroom, the first she’d ever had all to herself, couldn’t be painted pink, because that’s what color Hope’s was. The room with the closed door, the one kept exactly as it had been the day she disappeared. A shrine.
To this day, Eve didn’t know whether her adoptive mother had steered her to buy clothes in other colors because only Hope was supposed to be able to wear pretty pink and purple, or because Eve really did look better in crimson and orange and yield-sign yellow. She’d seen distress on her mother’s face and quit asking for the forbidden colors.
Mostly, she’d gotten over the desire to be blonde and blue-eyed, too, so she fit in her new family instead of being so obviously adopted.
“Hey.” A couple of faint lines had appeared on Ben’s forehead and she wondered how much he’d seen on her face. Not much, she hoped, unsure why his comment—maybe a compliment?—had sent her back in time. He laid a hand on the small of her back and gave her a gentle nudge toward the living room. With a glance down, she saw that he’d once again taken his daughter’s hand with his free one.
She felt a small burst of pleasure at being part of the threesome, almost as if they were together, before her practical self squelched it. She’d just met these two, and was pretty obviously not Rachel’s mother. Who might simply be tied up tonight, although Eve’s surreptitious glance failed to find a wedding ring on Ben Kemper’s finger.
Seated, neither of her parents seemed to have touched their glasses of wine, set on coasters on the coffee table. Both beamed upon seeing her. Her mother bounced to her feet and hugged her.
“Oh, this is so wonderful! All of us together! And Ben, too.” She turned her happy smile on his daughter. “You must be Rachel. I’m so glad you could come. My, your hair looks pretty like that.”
“Mommy did it.” She cast a glance upward at her father. “Daddy can’t. He says his fingers are too big.”
Ben’s face went particularly blank. Apparently she wasn’t the only one to notice, though, because before Eve could think what to say to counteract what must feel like disparagement, Eve’s father smiled at the little girl.
“I have two daughters, and I never learned to do fancy hairdos, either. Your daddy is right. His fingers probably are too thick.” He waggled his own for her to see. Kirk Lawson’s hands were not only shaped like a block, but oil tended to be embedded deep in any cracks. He owned an auto body shop.
Rachel leaned trustingly against her father. “That’s okay. I like to wear my hair in a ponytail, too, and he can do that.”
Seth, solidly built and brown-haired, appeared from the kitchen. “Hey, glad you could all make it. Rachel, nice to see you. I hear you’re going sledding tomorrow.”
She bounced. “Uh-huh. Daddy says so.”
“That’ll be fun.”
Lucky girl, Eve couldn’t help thinking.