Free The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan by authors_sort Page B

in public, and besides was busy pretending he didn’t see his son sitting there. The woman with him looked too uncomfortable to do anything to defuse the situation. She even took a small step away, maybe distancing herself from the looming scene, maybe ditching that possessive hand. And Cole wasn’t about to make anything easier for anyone, including himself.
    So Dixie took over. She smiled at the waiter. “There’s a misunderstanding, but it’s easily cleared up. There are two Mr. Ashtons present. That, I believe, is Mr. Spencer Ashton.” She nodded at Cole’s father, eyebrows raised. “Aren’t you?”
    He was faintly surprised, as if a chair had addressed him. “Yes, I am. And this is my assistant, Kerry Roarke. You are—?”
    “Dixie McCord.” She turned her smile up a notch. “And this is your son, Cole Ashton.”
    Cole choked and began coughing.
    The manager came rushing up. “Idiot. Idiot.” That seemed to be addressed to the waiter. “Go away. I’ll handle this. I am so terribly sorry,” he said, spreading his hands to include both Mr. Ashtons in the apology. “We have your table, of course, Mr. Ashton.” A small nod indicated the older man. “It’s right over here. If you’ll follow me—?”
    As soon as they were out of earshot Cole said, “If you think I’m going to thank you for that bit of interference—”
    “I’m not that naive. I suppose you want to leave now that you’ve defended your territory.”
    He stood and tossed his napkin on the table.
    Dixie ached for him. Not one word had his father spoken to him. There hadn’t been even a glance—no curiosity, nothing. Nothing Man is a good name for him, she thought as Cole scattered a few bills on the table.
    She knew better than to let Cole see how she hurt for him. Hold out a hand in sympathy right now andhe’d snap it off. The walls he’d pulled behind were steep and silent—but then, he had a lot of anger for them to hold back.
    It began spilling out when they got in his suvvy. “Did you see that bimbo with him? His assistant .” He made the word sound obscene. “Doesn’t look like he’s changed his habits.”
    “I don’t think she’s a bimbo.” Dixie fastened her seat belt. It looked as if they were in for a rough ride.
    “Bimbo, mistress, what’s the difference?” He backed out, slammed the car into Drive and stepped on the gas. “I wonder if Bimbo Number One knows about Bimbo Number Two.”
    Bimbo Number One, she assumed, would be his stepmother, the woman Spencer Ashton had had an affair with. The one he’d married as soon as the divorce from Cole’s mother was final. The woman he’d raised a second family with—a family he hadn’t deserted. “There may be nothing to know. I don’t think that woman is his mistress,” Dixie repeated patiently. “The body language was wrong.”
    “Oh, he’s staked a claim there, all right.” Cole swung out onto the street with barely a pause. “Trust me on that.”
    “He may be staking a claim, but she hasn’t accepted it.”
    “Don’t be naive. She was uncomfortable at being spotted with him by his son. Probably didn’t realize I’m from his other family—the one he doesn’t see, speak to or give two cents about.”
    Dixie decided they had better things to fight aboutthan a woman they’d never see again. “You are not like him, Cole.”
    “Where did that come from?” He was cutting through traffic as if he needed to be somewhere, anywhere, other than where he was right now. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
    “You look like him. That doesn’t mean you’re like him.”
    “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Okay. We’ll save it for when you aren’t driving.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my driving.”
    She rolled her eyes. “If you want to argue, fine. But you don’t get to pick the subject.”
    “And you do, I suppose?”
    “Yes, because you’d have us fighting about all the wrong things. What you really