Incarnate by Claire Kent Page B

backed down to a low simmer.
    “He wasn’t really looking at me,” Anna said, peering at Seth suspiciously. “Was he?”
    Her voice cracked slightly on the last word—sounding so disbelieving and so hopeful at the same time that it nearly broke Erin’s heart.
    “He better not be,” Seth muttered, sawing at his steak viciously. “At least Mackenzie just attracts boys her own age.”
    Anna shot a look back at the table in question and appeared to be convinced by the young man’s obvious preoccupation with their table. While Erin thought he was probably just confused and disconcerted by Seth Thomas’s sudden, inexplicable antipathy toward him, she could see why Anna might take it as guilt at having been caught ogling her.
    Anna gave Erin a helpless, questioning look.
    Erin half-shrugged. “I told you,” she whispered with a smile.
    Anna smiled back, looking flushed and flustered and so pretty Erin was surprised the whole restaurant wasn’t staring at her.
    “Anyway,” Seth said, clearing his throat with one last malevolent look over Anna’s shoulder, “No need to let someone else’s poor behavior ruin our evening. You were talking about your story.”
    “Right.” Anna took a sip of water and tried to concentrate on finishing her explanation. But her eyes kept slipping back toward the table Seth had drawn her attention to. After she finished eating, she excused herself to go the restroom.
    Erin watched as her daughter made her way through the tables toward the back of the restaurant. Her hips were swaying more than usual as she walked past the young man, a fact that made Erin chuckle and feel a tender pang in her heart simultaneously.
    Seth was frowning though. “She does look older than fourteen. Does she have to wear such short skirts?”
    Anna was wearing a fluttery skirt that reached just above her knees. “That’s not a short skirt. We’re not living in the nineteenth-century, you know.”
    “Too bad.”
    With a sigh, Erin looked back at Seth when Anna had disappeared into the bathroom. “He wasn’t really leering at her, was he?”
    Seth’s mouth tilted up just slightly. “He might have been.”
    Erin covered his hand with hers on the table. “You really are the most adorable man.”
    With a half-sneer, Seth said coolly, “I’d prefer a word more dignified than adorable.”
    Erin snickered appreciatively, giving his hand a fond squeeze. Then she said seriously, “It’s going to take more than that to deal with this, though.”
    “I know. But I have to start somewhere.”
    When Anna returned, they ordered dessert, and Anna’s chocolate peanut-butter torte was almost enough to distract her from her preoccupation with the handsome young man behind her.
    After they’d finished, Seth stood up and nodded toward the dance floor, where couples had started to dance. He extended his hand to Erin, but his eyes held a significant look that she understood.
    She shook her head. “I’m tired and my feet hurt in these shoes. I don’t feel like dancing. Sorry.”
    Seth frowned. “So you’re going to just leave me hanging?” He sounded genuinely peeved. Then he turned to Anna, extending his hand to her instead.
    “Dad,” Anna objected with a familiar soft whine.
    “So I’m rejected by both of my women?” Seth demanded.
    “Dance with him, sweetie,” Erin told her daughter, “or we’ll never hear the end of it. He’s really not a bad dancer.”
    Anna relented and Seth led her to the dance floor. Erin had a marvelous, sentimental time watching the girl dance with her father. She couldn’t help but wonder what Seth was saying that made Anna smile that way. She knew it was supposed to be a private time between the two of them, but Erin was determined to interrogate Seth later that night to find out what had been said.
    She was so focused watching the dance floor that she gave a little jump when a voice spoke from beside her, “You’re far too beautiful a woman to be left by yourself at the