Free Kate's Vow (Vows) by Sherryl Woods

the house was in order.
    It would also give her time for a long run on the beach, maybe a swim. Hopefully a little exercise would put an end to all these ridiculous fantasies before the object of those fantasies turned up.

Chapter Six
    R unning didn’t help. Neither did swimming. By seven o’clock on Friday night, Kate was as jittery as a teenager on her first date. Why, she wondered, had an intelligent, cynical woman become attracted for the first time in years to the one man least likely to offer himself heart and soul to a relationship? A man whose behavior toward his son represented the epitome of irresponsibility, if not outright neglect?
    She tried telling herself it wasn’t attraction so much as determination to help Davey in any way she could. If that meant she had to insinuate herself into his father’s life to assure that David and his son forged a new bond, then that’s what she would do. She almost believed the explanation. It sounded noble, professional, compassionate. And, in fact, that much really was true. However, despite all the claims she’d made to Dorothy Paul, it wasn’t the whole truth by any means.
    It was the lost, faraway look in his eyes, she decided after careful analysis. That sorrow hinted at a depth of emotion that some part of her desperately wanted to experience, at the very least wanted to comprehend. And maybe, in some small measure, it was his unavailability. Perhaps she was merely responding to the challenge of conquering that had appealed to men and women from the beginning of time.
    The sun was sinking in a rare clear sky when she heard a car pull into the space next to hers along the narrow beachfront road that forked off Pacific Coast Highway. Barefoot and wearing loose white pants and an oversize rose-colored sweater, she walked along the side of the house to the back and opened the gate. She was just in time to see Davey bound around the trendy four-wheel-drive wagon parked next to her expensive low-slung sports car. The ultimate Hollywood, two-car family, she thought wryly, one practical vehicle, the other fast and sexy.
    “This place is the best,” Davey announced, his eyes sparkling as he bounced up and down on his sneakers as if he couldn’t quite wait for the starting gun in a race.
    She grinned at his exuberance. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”
    “But I can tell already. Dad says you have a basketball hoop. Can I play? You and me against him, okay? He said you had games, too. What kind? Maybe we could play Monopoly after dinner.”
    Kate grinned at his nonstop plans. “If you think I’m playing Monopoly with you again, you’re crazy, kiddo. You’re obviously destined to be some sort of real estate tycoon. My ego can’t take that kind of bashing.”
    Just then David emerged from the car. He was wearing the same style of snug jeans he always wore, topped by a polo shirt in a soft jade green. Somehow, though, he already looked more relaxed, as if he had caught some small measure of his son’s excitement.
    He surveyed her from head to toe, a surprisingly approving glint in his eyes. That glint told Kate she’d made a mistake when she’d dressed, after all. She’d thought the loose-fitting clothes would be less provocative.
    “I suspect your ego could withstand all sorts of assaults,” he taunted.
    The surprisingly lighthearted comment seemed to set the tone for the day. Kate’s mood shifted from anxious to something closer to anticipation.
    “Surely losing a game to a mere boy wouldn’t be enough to shatter your self-confidence,” he added.
    “Has your son ever bankrupted you twenty minutes into a game of Monopoly?” she inquired dryly.
    “Afraid not. I taught him everything he knows.”
    Kate scowled as both males grinned unrepentantly. “How about cards? I’m very good at rummy.”
    “We have a whole long weekend to discover all the things at which you excel,” David retorted, his speculative gaze leveled on her.
    Whatever distance he’d