Free Dare You to Run by Dawn Ryder Page B

introduced to the other side of her father’s nature. Jeb was shifting around on the porch, his hands in his pockets. The look he shot her over her mother’s head was pure warning.
    â€œAren’t you due in California tonight?”
    Her mother sighed. “Yes. But honestly Jeb, I am never home anymore. I really need to ease up a bit.”
    â€œCan’t do that.” Her father deflected his wife’s words easily. “Besides, Damascus is rarely home, her classes keep her at the university most of the time. That lab she studies in is a sealed one, the kind where the doctors have to wear those pressurized suits. Better for you to be out where you are doing good instead of waiting on her to finish.”
    Her father had stopped and placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Miranda patted it. “You’re right. Of course. Come hug your mother Damascus, I have to catch a plane.”
    She went back into her mother’s embrace but caught her father shooting her a hard look. She was so tempted to let him see what she thought of him. The desire was chewing a hole inside her, but she clamped down on it, focusing instead on the moments she had with her mother.
    There would be plenty of time to hate her sire later.
    Of that she was certain.
    *   *   *
    â€œAt last, we’re alone,” Carl Davis said.
    Damascus lifted her glass and took a long sip, grateful for a distraction. But when she lowered it, she found herself looking across the restaurant at a man she recognized.
    Saxon Hale.
    She’d know him anywhere. He had Vitus’s jaw, but his hair was dark as opposed to Vitus’s. She looked into the same blue eyes, saw the same cutting condemnation she’d witnessed in Vitus before Saxon broke it off and returned to sweeping the area.
    What the hell was he doing on security detail?
    Her temper flared. The strain of maintaining her ruse with her sire was nearly more than she could shoulder, and now Saxon was there? She’d worked too hard to protect them both. Damn all men and their pride. And damn her for the way she squirmed in her seat. She didn’t owe Saxon or his brother any apologies for going on a date, especially a date she didn’t want to be on. But she still felt heat teasing her cheeks, like she was betraying Vitus somehow.
    Shit, fate had a twisted sense of humor.
    â€œI must say, I have been looking forward to this since last night,” Carl continued.
    Her temper was hot, which meant it was a bad time to open her mouth, but that didn’t seem to register. Her patience was just worn too thin. “So have I.”
    Carl’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
    â€œIt’s not often I get the privacy I need to tell someone like you exactly how much of a jerk I think you are.”
    There, it was said. The security men assigned to them likely heard her, but they were maintaining their stony, unreadable expressions as the waiting staff hung back and made sure they arrived only when Carl summoned them. The restaurant itself was a press-free establishment, members only.
    â€œYour father has no idea what a little bundle of fire you are,” Carl replied, his tone edged with anticipation.
    It turned her stomach, destroying her appetite, which was a real shame because in his quest to use her as a pawn, her father kept her on a very strict diet. She was starving, and even sitting through dinner with Carl was worth it if she got to eat what she wanted. Instead of having the dietitian counting her calories.
    â€œWhat’s up Carl?” she asked as she laid her menu aside. “Can’t you get enough women?”
    He offered her a slant of his head. “Marriage and getting women are two separate things. For families like ours anyway,” he sniffed. “You should know that—your mother is a Delacroix. No older family in Washington.”
    Of course, the Delacroix blood was what he was really courting. Her mother’s