Free His Touch by Patty Blount Page B

my sister tell you the story of how she met Lucas?”
    He frowned. “I haven’t said more than a few words to your sister.”
    Kara cast her eyes heavenward. Oh, Mom, please no. Not him. She snuck another look at Reid. Oh, he was definitely attractive. Well-defined muscles filled out his T-shirt. He had close-cropped hair with stunning eyes. And if she were being completely honest with herself, he did make her pulse race. And yes, she had to admit the biggest bullet point in Reid Bennett’s Plus column wasn’t his looks… it was that he genuinely seemed to care for Nadia. After Steve’s abrupt departure, Kara would damn well not make that mistake again.
    Reid turned his face, caught her staring with a lift to his eyebrow. “So are you gonna tell me the story or what?”
    She sighed and debated that for a moment. Why not? “Okay. Nadia’s father bolted the second the pregnancy test turned positive,” she began. The distinct tightening of Reid’s jaw at that news added another point in his Plus column. “I considered not… not going through with it for exactly two minutes and then decided I would love this baby enough for both of us. But as I got near my delivery date, I started to panic. I couldn’t settle on a name. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t do a damn thing.”
    “You were alone?” He frowned down at her, stepping around a delivery guy.
    “No,” she said, smiling. “Never alone. My mom has—um, had—this circle of friends. Four sorority sisters. They stayed friends from their first year of college on. And when all of them started families, they raised us to become the best of friends. More than friends. We’re family. I had a regular parade of visits from all of the aunts and Sabrina, Jade, and Cassandra.”
    “But?”
    She almost grinned. “I needed my family. I had all these friends and honorary aunts, but not my dad, not my brothers or my sister. I called Elena and begged her to come.”
    “Where was your family?”
    “Florida now. My dad and two brothers. Laney was there then too. She hadn’t been back to New York since Mom was killed.”
    “And you stayed?”
    Kara shrugged. “I followed Steve. That was my first mistake. He got offered a job here and told me he was taking it. I said I’d come, too. It wasn’t until after he left me that it finally dawned on me that he’d never actually asked me to come with him. I just assumed.”
    “How long were you together?”
    Kara brushed aside an insect that landed on Nadia’s hat. “Since college. On again, off again.”
    Reid let out a low whistle.
    “Anyway, Elena arrived on Thanksgiving weekend. I wasn’t due until Christmas time, but I had to leave work well before that. Sciatic issues.”
    Reid winced and nodded.
    “I had my nose pressed to the window in my living room, counting the seconds until Elena arrived. Finally, the car pulled to the curb. She got out and some jerk knocked her right into the snow. Lucas helped her up.” She laughed once. “Oh, my God, you should have seen it. There’s Elena, sprawled in the snow, looking up at Luke with this huge smile like he was Prince Charming come to rescue her from her tower. Oh! Wait!” She fished her cell phone from her bag, scrolled through her pictures and handed him the phone. “I kept it.”
    Reid smiled at the image. “Whoa. She does look Cupid-shot.”
    Kara laughed and nodded. “I teased her mercilessly about that look. It looked like love at first sight to me, so I kept trying to shove them together. I sent Elena down to September’s Families Guild, where I volunteered. Lucas is head of one of the committees. I even called him to put the baby’s crib together.”
    With a laugh and shoulder nudge, Reid said, “In other words, you meddled.”
    She sniffed and with no shame, admitted, “Yes, I did. Not that it helped. Laney was determined to escape from New York as soon as the baby was born. She wanted nothing to do with him. She said it wasn’t fair to start