He sat back in his chair and put up both hands. “Okay. I give up. You’ve convinced me. Jerilyn Doolin is a wonderful girl. CJ is lucky she’s interested in him.”
Most of her defensive tension drained away. She hid a triumphant smile. “About time you realized that.”
“Maybe so.” He still looked doubtful.
“But?”
“I’m just not happy about it. CJ can’t afford the distraction.”
“Distraction? Boys have been falling for girls since the beginning of time. That’s not going to change just because you’re not happy about it.”
“The last thing CJ needs right now is to get too involved with a girl—any girl.”
“Connor, he likes her. She likes him. You can’t make that go away. In fact, in my experience, which is reasonably extensive given that I work with teenagers for a living, the more the parents try to come between a young couple, the more the attraction grows.” Tori spoke with intensity. With passion, even.
He was staring at her, frowning.
Was she becoming a little too emotional over this? Maybe. But she really believed what she was saying and she wanted to get through to the hardheaded man across from her, to get him to understand. She feared if he didn’t, he would only be making things worse for CJ.
“Romeo and Juliet,” she declared vehemently. “Wuthering Heights, Titanic. Think of all the books and plays and movies about passionate, thwarted young love. It only leads to heartbreak when the grown-ups decide to interfere.”
He leaned toward her again. “So, Tori.”
“What?” she demanded hotly.
“Tell me what you really think.”
She blinked. And then she laughed. He laughed, too. “Okay,” she admitted. “I try to be open-minded, but when I really believe something, I advocate for it, you know?”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
She qualified wryly, “Up to a point, you mean.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. He was watching her mouth again. “Up to a point.” The words trailed off. A few seconds of silence elapsed—a silence filled with sparks. Finally, he confessed, “Sometimes I’m at a loss, you know? I have no idea how to get through to my own son.”
“Are you asking for my advice?”
“Yeah. I guess I am.”
“Okay, then. Here’s what I think you should do. Take Russ up on his offer to put CJ to work at the Hopping H. And then tell CJ to invite Jerilyn over to your house.”
“Over to the house for what?”
“To visit, to hang out. You know, play video games or watch a movie. Make your son feel that his new friends are welcome at home. Let him know that you’re on his side. Start changing the equation from you versus him to you supporting him and really taking into account what he wants and needs.”
“Seems to me I already support him.”
She let her exasperation show. “You mean by buying him every electronic gadget under the sun and then being frustrated because all he does is play video games?”
“What?” Rueful humor shone in his eyes. “I should take away his Xbox?”
“I can’t answer that question. You might just widen the rift at this point by denying him something you gave him in the first place.”
“Actually, I think that was Jennifer—my ex-wife—who gave him the Xbox.”
“Ah. Blaming the ex, huh?”
He shook his head. “Does nothing get by you?”
“Hey, I teach high-school English. Without a sharply honed sense of what’s bull and what’s not, I wouldn’t make it through the first week of a new semester.”
He gave in. “Okay, okay. I’ll ask CJ to have Jerilyn over and I’ll take Russ up on his offer, get CJ working at Melanie’s guest ranch. Anything else?”
Tori laughed. “I’ll be in touch with further suggestions.”
Entranced. Captivated. Enchanted.
They were words straight out of some women’s novel.
But as Connor sat across that table from Tori Jones, he couldn’t help thinking that those words exactly described what the small-town schoolteacher did to him. He might as well stop trying to tell himself he wasn’t interested. He was powerfully drawn to her.
Clearly, he should have dated more when he was younger.
He’d married Jennifer while they were both in college. Because she was from the right family and she was gorgeous and ready to get married to the right kind of man. A man with money and good breeding equal to her own. It had seemed a very suitable match. The perfect match.
Plus, with the marrying and the settling down out of the way early, he’d been free to concentrate on his career in the family company. He’d never looked at another woman during his marriage. He had a wife and a son, a beautiful home—and his ambitions for McFarlane House, which were considerable. What else was there?
Just possibly, a whole lot more, he was discovering.
There had been a couple of other women, since Jennifer walked out on him. The sex had been good with them, which it never really had been with Jennifer. But he had never been entranced. Or captivated. Or enchanted.
Until now.
He wanted her—her, Tori Jones, in particular. Not just someone suitably attractive and well-bred, as Jennifer had been. Not just someone sophisticated, sexually exciting and discreet, which pretty much described the two women he’d dated after his marriage had crashed and burned.
It came to him that he … he liked this woman. And that feeling was new to him. He liked her quick wit, her wisdom and her big heart. He liked the passion in her voice when she talked about things she believed in.
He liked her. And suddenly it mattered all out of proportion that she might like him, too.
Was he losing it? He couldn’t help but wonder. Was he cracking under the strain—of the soured economy, the McFarlane House setbacks, his divorce, the scary changes in his son? Of the changes he’d decided he needed to make in his life and himself?
Strangely, right then, on his first date with Tori Jones, he didn’t care if he just might be going over the edge. He was having a great time—having fun, of all things—and he didn’t want it to end.
They lingered at the table for over an hour after the meal was finished, talking and laughing, sharing glances that said a lot more than their words did. Finally, reluctantly, he took her home.
At her house, hating to let her go, he walked her up to the door.
She turned to him and said what he’d been praying she might. “Want to come in for a minute?”
He held her gaze, nodded. They shared a warm smile.
Inside, she offered coffee. He accepted, more as a matter of form than because he needed any extra caffeine.
She made more tea for herself and they went out to her comfortable great room and sat on the sofa. He drank the coffee he didn’t really want and thought about kissing her, about holding her in his arms.
About how, once he did that, he would have a hard time letting go.
“I