Incarnate by Claire Kent Page A

responsible, and more mature than a lot of girls her age. She had a strong moral foundation and a wider range of perspectives and experiences.
    But she’d also been deeply sheltered by the love and resources of her family. She wasn’t nearly as jaded or self-sufficient as Erin had been at her age.
    And for some reason the recognition comforted Erin. Her girls were growing up, but they weren’t grown up yet. And Anna clearly still needed her parents as much as she always had.
    She wanted to somehow share this reassurance with Seth—since she knew he needed it too. But when she glanced over to meet his eyes, she saw that he was frowning.
    As their dinners arrived, Erin kept looking over at her husband. He was sustaining his part of the conversation, but his eyes kept straying to some spot between Erin and Anna’s chairs, and his frown got more and more obvious.
    “Is something wrong, Seth?” Erin murmured, taking her first bite of shrimp.
    Seth refocused on their conversation, although he appeared to be bristling inwardly. “No. Go on, Anna. You were saying you had to interview the chair of the school board for that story you were writing?”
    “Yeah.” Anna glanced behind her, looking in confusion for what had preoccupied her father. “So I called him…”
    She continued, telling her story in endless, enthusiastic detail. But, as she went on, Seth gradually got distracted again until he was glowering and stewing with obvious temper.
    Anna’s voice kept trailing off as she lost her place in her story. She exchanged several confused looks with Erin until she finally asked, “What’s wrong, Dad?”
    Seth’s jaw was clenched and his hand was fisted around his fork as he held up a forkful of grilled vegetables. “Nothing.”
    Anna made an indignant sound at this blatant falsehood, and Erin reached over to put her hand on Seth’s tense arm. “Seth?”
    Under the implied insistence of her soft voice, Seth finally relented. “I thought I might be able to enjoy a family dinner without some fuck—”
    “Seth,” Erin interrupted in an automatic reproach. Obviously, Anna had heard language of that nature before—her aunt Liz had been a bad influence in that regard from the beginning—but Erin couldn’t seem to stop herself from an instinctive objection.
    “Without some young asshole,” Seth corrected without missing a beat, gritting the words out through his teeth, “leering at my daughter.”
    Erin’s eyes widened and Anna’s mouth dropped open slightly. The girl looked around the restaurant with a guileless disbelief that sent a pang of feeling through Erin’s chest.
    Erin easily found the handsome young man Seth was glaring at so ruthlessly. He was dark-haired, well-built, and looked to be college-aged.
    As far as Erin could tell, the young man had not been leering at Anna.
    Since Anna’s back was to the young man, she was still looking around in bewilderment. Her cheeks were even pinker than they’d been earlier. “Who was?”
    Seth ignored her question and aimed a merciless glare at his innocent target. “Just because she looks like she’s about twenty doesn’t give him the right to ogle my teenaged daughter.”
    Anna had finally found the source of her father’s foul mood, and her pretty face twisted in pleased surprise as she saw he was attractive and at least five years older than she was. “He was? I think you’re getting paranoid, Dad. He doesn’t seem to have even noticed…” Her voice trailed off, and she turned quickly to face forward again as the young man caught her staring at him.
    “I believe your father has effectively scared him off,” Erin murmured, trying desperately to keep a straight face as Seth continued to ham up his furious outrage and snarl under his breath.
    If he kept it up, Anna would catch on. Children were often the most clueless about their own parents, but Anna had always been unusually observant. Erin aimed a discreet kick at Seth’s ankle but he’d already