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scratching as he came to the room he had been staying in. “Oh come on, fella, you’re going to get us kicked out if Auntie Haven finds out you’re tearing up her new home.”
    “Mom already knows,” Jocé said coming out of her room. “But you’re safe because Mom said something about it’s all per— perpeptive ?”
    “Perspective?”
    “That’s what she said. She said since you don’t have a house she shouldn’t complain about a door. But when I tried to say the same thing about cleaning my room, she yelled at me and yelled about how Dad doesn’t pick up his socks.”
    Hearing Jocé refer to Tony as Dad always made him smile. Having been married only a couple months, Tony had already adopted Haven’s daughter and now, unless you knew, you would never believe Jocé wasn’t his daughter by birth. Tony, like everything else, had taken to fatherhood like he was born to it, shedding his image of a womanizing playboy as if it were the pair of socks left on the floor. “He doesn’t, does he? I suppose she would yell about that.” It warmed him just a bit to know Tony wasn’t all that perfect after all.
    Jocé shrugged, biting her lip much in the same manner her mother did when she wanted to ask a question but didn’t know how to ask. “Mom said you have a new girlfriend and you were bringing her over. Can I meet her? Is she here?”
    “She is, and I am sure you will, but I’m guessing since you’re upstairs and the puppy is in another room you’re supposed to be cleaning your room?”
    “I am. And I can’t come down till it’s clean.” She moped back into her room.
    Lucas stuck his head into her room to assess the damage. “Hide it under your bed. That’s what I used to do.”
    “She checks there.”
    “Closet?”
    “There too.”
    “What about your dresser drawers?”
    “This is Mom we’re talking about.”
    “Hmmm…how about my closet?”
    “Oh, she never goes in that room excerpt to change the sheets, good idea.” Jocé clapped and grabbed an armful of clothes. She moved into Lucas’s bedroom and threw it all into the walk-in closet.
    Puppy in arm, Lucas headed back downstairs and through the family room to the door leading out back. He was hiding, and he admitted it. He didn’t want to deal with Kiloran. He wanted to delay the moment where he was forced to be alone with her as long as possible. The puppy romped in grass in need of cutting, chasing a passing dragonfly. Haven was right; the dog really needed a name. Kiloran’s voice cut through the silence. “Haven asked me to tell you dinner is ready.”
    “I’ll be right there.”
    “Oh my, he’s a cute one isn’t he?” Kiloran came down the stairs toward the puppy, which stopped for a second before running and tumbling at her feet. The puppy licked her chin in excitement as she giggled.
    “Traitor,” Lucas muttered, mounting the steps back into the house, leaving Kiloran with the puppy. The damned dog should have hated her. That would have at least given him some enjoyment.
    As he went in he heard her say in a soft voice, “You know that master of yours doesn’t like me too much, so you just remember to show me loving when he isn’t around, okay?”
    That same man once loved you so much it nearly destroyed him, Kiloran . Lucas moved, took a steadying breath, and faced dinner like he did everything—head-on.

Chapter Four
    “I don’t have to convince anyone that I love you.”—Lucas to Kiloran
    K iloran looked over the grounds outside her bedroom window, the lights from the house illuminating the yard just enough for her to make out Lucas and the puppy running around in the predawn. They had arrived last night, and this was the first she’d seen Lucas since. Not that the house was big, but he had done a great job of making himself scarce.
    Other than telling her she had a “nice place” when they’d arrived, he hadn’t spoken to her since dinner at Tony and Haven’s the evening before, and even then it had