Free Yours to Keep by Serena Bell Page A

her, ready to call Theo off again. “It’s an apartment. Two bedrooms. One bathroom.”
    She saw the exact moment when that registered with Ethan, the look of disbelief that came over his face. Well, she thought, that’s that. He’d had no idea how different their worlds were, but now he knew.
    “Three women and one bathroom?” he asked.
    Of all the things he could have said, or asked, she was not expecting that one. She’d thought he might make a sympathetic murmur. Or ask a question like “Is that difficult, so many people in such a small space?” Or blush and change the subject.
    He’d done none of those things.
    She liked him so much right then, she could feel it in every cell, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.

Chapter 7
    “I’m sorry about all Theo’s questions at dinner,” Ethan said. Embarrassed might actually be a more accurate word, but, whatever you called it, he owed her an apology. “We seem determined to make you squirm every time you visit our house.”
    She was washing dishes. Ethan was drying. Theo was upstairs doing his homework.
    Ethan had offered to wash, since she’d cooked, but she said it made more sense this way, since he knew where things went. She’d filled the sink with hot water and suds, and she scrubbed, her sleeves pushed way up to reveal slim pale brown arms. He’d had ample time, too much time, to regard the back view of her, the impossible narrowness of her waist and the sweet curve of her behind in those body-hugging jeans, which made him want to fit himself against her. Now, though, he was watching her face.
    She looked surprised by his apology. “I didn’t mind. People are always asking me questions. Or the opposite—pretending they don’t have any questions when I know they’re brimming over with them. Especially when I’m in Beacon. I’m exotic here.”
    He supposed she was, although he wouldn’t have chosen that word. Despite everything he’d learned about her, she felt more familiar to him than the women he encountered daily.
    “Beacon doesn’t have a lot of families of six living in apartments,” he admitted.
    She smiled widely at that. “No.”
    “Or people with the last name Travares.” He picked up a serving bowl and began drying it.
    “No. Not very many Dominicans. Not very many Latinos. Not very many families with three adults working five jobs.”
    “Wow. Not five each ?”
    “God, no. Among us.” She tossed her head, and the long, thick strands of her gorgeous hair resettled around her shoulders.
    He wanted to reach out and touch it, to see if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. “You’re right,” he said instead. “Not many Beacon families with three adults working fivejobs. Although I do know this one family where the father is a programmer and a musician and a piano teacher and the mother is a freelance journalist and has a mail-order cookie service.” He hung a skillet back on the pot rack above the stove. “Or are those more like hobbies?”
    “Hobbies.”
    His gaze traced the curve of her behind again, and his mouth went dry. “Do you have hobbies?” His voice, despite his thoughts, was steady and calm, and he willed his body to follow suit. Otherwise, he was going to reach out and grab that lovely ass of hers, and once he put his hands on her—
    “No time. Two jobs.”
    He swallowed and licked his lips. “The tutoring and the ESL teaching?”
    She nodded.
    “Do you work for a particular school with the ESL teaching?”
    “The school of Ana. I put flyers up in the library. You wouldn’t believe how many people want to learn English, and I think it helps that it’s my second language, so I’m ‘one of them.’ ”
    “You’re an entrepreneur,” he said, impressed.
    She laughed. “Never thought of it that way, but I guess I am.”
    He was beginning to suspect that each revelation she made hid more mysteries. Why, for example, didn’t she teach in a public school, or at least for an established