Free Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet by Noelle Adams Page B

although he was looking quite pleased with himself.
    Baron’s expression spoke very clearly about how absurd this comment was, and he reached into the bag with a half-smile to pull out a bottle of her dad’s favorite imported beer, a brand too expensive for him to buy for himself very often, since her dad had always been frugal.
    “Good memory,” he father said, smiling in a way that made Leila smile too. “It’s been a long time.”
    It had been a long time since Baron was best friends with her brother, but he had managed to remember her father’s favorite beer. Leila took the bottle into the kitchen to put in the refrigerator—since the girls’ punch was the drink of choice this evening—and she stayed for a minute to check on the food.
    Baron was really trying, she realized. Whether it was just to be a good guest, or whether he genuinely wanted to please her father and daughters, she didn’t really know. It was nice, though.
    “You need any help?” a male voice said from the kitchen doorway.
    She glanced over her shoulder with a grin for Baron. “I think I’m all right. The girls made everything this afternoon. Pizza and cake.”
    “Sounds excellent.”
    “I made a salad,” she added, recognizing the irony in his tone. “In case the adults needed a little something extra.” She pulled it out of the refrigerator and handed it to him. “You can bring it to the table if you don’t mind.”
    He took the large salad bowl without comment, but he didn’t leave. He stood in the middle of the floor, looking darkly attractive and expensive and woefully out of place in Leila’s simple kitchen.
    Flushing a little—for no reason she could understand—Leila pulled the pizza out of the oven with a hotpad. The heat of the oven made her cheeks even hotter. “It was really nice of you to bring those flowers. And the beer for my dad.”
    He gave a half-shrug, looking slightly uncomfortable for the first time. “It was nothing.”
    “I don’t think it was nothing,” she said, turning to cut the pizza in quick, efficient strokes. “They didn’t either.”
    Baron didn’t respond. She realized he didn’t want to be thanked, that he didn’t want her to make a big deal about the gifts or his presence here.
    She really had no idea why he was here.
    “Anyway, you know you’ll be invited to every subsequent party the girls decide to throw, don’t you?” She pitched her voice to be light in order to break whatever tension had hung in the air the moment before.
    Baron laughed—low and husky—and Leila felt her cheeks flush again, for a different reason this time. As she carried the pizza out to the table, she told herself to pull it together.
    She wasn’t an inexperienced teenager, and she wasn’t about to be swept off her feet by a handsome face and a delicious laugh.
    Once they sat down to eat, conversation came easily. The adults talked casually about sports and current events, and Charlotte and Jane broke in occasionally to ask if everyone liked their pizza and their punch and if everyone suitably admired their beautiful flowers.
    When the cake came out—decorated in blue and lavender icing curlicues by the girls with a big football appliqué to make it a “boy” cake—the girls sang the “Happy Birthday” song to their grandfather in a slightly off-key duet. Then they managed to capture Baron’s attention and told him with great enthusiasm about their long preparations for the party.
    Leila watched carefully, looking for any signs that he was growing impatient with their happy prattle. He didn’t interact with them the way most adults did. He didn’t talk down to them or change his vocabulary or tone of voice. He was obviously listening to what they said, though, because he asked them apt questions during the infrequent breaks in their chatter. When the girls tried to pull their grandfather into the conversation as well, it was Baron who filled in the gaps in the background information that