Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [59]
So he’d have to say things had been going quite well. For the most part.
They were a very nice family…but not entirely welcoming, he had to admit. Because all of them had, at one point or another, said something to make it clear that Annie belonged here, with them, not in some big city with anybody else.
He got the message. He was wearing an Anybody sign around his neck.
Still, with two brothers gone, the father distracted and the mother chattering about tonight’s party, Sean had begun to let his guard down.
Obviously too soon.
“So, Sean, where exactly did you and Annie meet?”
The pointed look in Mrs. Davis’s eye said she was ready to get down to business. The grill-the-new-boy-friend business.
Sean’s mind went blank as his hostess addressed him. Trying desperately to remember what they’d agreed upon—dating service? blind date?—he opened his mouth. But his answer was cut short when Annie said, “We met at a party.”
He nodded. “Right. A party.” Being creative, he embellished a little bit. “A Halloween party.”
Mr. Davis peered over the top of his paper, his brow pulled into a small frown. “I thought Annie said you’d only been seeing each other a couple of months.”
Foot meet mouth. Damn.
“Well, dating, yes, but we’ve known each other longer.”
The lie came easily off Annie’s lips. Normally, he’d expect seeing someone make up such falsehoods so easily would be a turn-off. Instead, he wanted to commend her for being so quick on her feet. The gleam of humor in her eyes over their shared secret amused him to no end.
She was good at this subterfuge thing. One of James Bond’s babes couldn’t have been any more creative.
Sean smothered a sigh, thinking of the Bond thing. That had come up almost as soon as he’d arrived. And again at least once an hour since.
Why, oh why, could Americans not hear the difference between an Irish accent and an English one?
“Being friends with someone you date is a very smart idea,” Mrs. Davis said, nodding in approval. “Sooner or later the blind excitement wears off and it’s nice to be with someone you actually like when it does.”
The paper shook slightly, and Mr. Davis’s voice emerged from behind it. “Blind excitement…riiiight.”
Judging by his long, deep sighs whenever the subject of tonight’s anniversary party came up, Mr. Davis wasn’t quite the romantic his wife was. He seemed the type to keep his head down and his mouth closed, obviously used to doing just that after thirty-five years of marriage to such a powerful woman.
Right now, he also seemed to be completely distracted and separate from the conversation going on around him. But Sean had no illusions that the man was paying very careful attention to his daughter and the new guy.
“Sean was just so nice and charming, we hit it off from the minute we met,” Annie said, holding her mother’s gaze with complete innocence.
She wasn’t lying, not at all. They had hit it off right away. Only, it had happened five days ago. Not eight months ago.
Having lived in his own veil of half-truths, and knowing the benefits of discretion, he didn’t hold it against her. Just because Sean liked her family so far, that didn’t mean he hadn’t seen exactly what she’d been warning him about from the minute her oldest brother had rapped him on the back of the head.
They were close-knit, incredibly protective, and while well-mannered, there had been more than one under-the-breath comment about Sean “stealing” their little girl away. As if he had anything to do with her having left home, what was it, five years ago?
The nonstop commentary about friends, family and neighbors and the not-very-subtle assumption that Annie would be back when she got over her “little adventure” was grating on him after two hours. He simply couldn