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Trouble.
“This is not over,” Rachel warned and Cade didn’t know if she was talking to Harper or him, or both. He decided the statement was probably all inclusive.
“Can we just leave?” Harper whispered.
“Yeah. Okay.” He glanced at his ex-wife, and she didn’t argue. To Harper, he said, “I’ll meet you in the truck. I want to talk to Mom a sec.”
“Oh, great,” Harper mumbled, rolling her eyes before heading to his pickup.
“Deal with this,” Rachel ordered, pointing at his chest. “I’m serious.”
“I know. I will.”
“Good.” She started to follow after the kids, but he caught her by the arm and spun her back to face him.
“What?”
“We were that age once,” he reminded her and she looked at his fingers, clenched as they were on her wrist.
“Exactly.” Her gaze met his. “And I got pregnant.”
“And it wasn’t the end of the world.” He let go.
“She’s only seventeen. I was older. But let’s not have her replay our mistakes, okay? She’s got a whole future ahead of her.”
“You’ve talked to her?” he asked.
“What? About sex? What do you think?” She shook her head, the auburn strands of her hair catching in the light cast through a nearby window. “From the time she was in sixth grade. Of course. Have you?”
“Not really.”
“What about Dylan?” she asked.
“He’s just—”
“Fifteen,” she shot back, her face in shadow. “How often did you think about sex at his age?”
Too often. All the time, in fact.
His face must’ve given him away.
“Yeah, I thought so. So there ya go,” she said.
“I will. I’ll talk to him. Tonight.”
“Good. I’ve already brought it up. We had a discussion. He hated it, of course, but it had to happen. Face it, Cade, we don’t just have to worry about our daughter. Right? Dylan could be sexually active for all we know.”
“God, I hope not.”
“Me too. But . . .” She let her voice trail off and he stared at her profile—narrow nose, big troubled eyes, dark lashes that brushed high cheekbones and lips that were now pursed in thought.
“Let’s take it down a notch, okay? Not go all parent-ballistic on them? Try to have a reasonable discussion.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Is that what I’m doing? Going ‘parent-ballistic’?”
He actually felt his lips twitch. “Well, I wouldn’t say you were exactly the calm voice of reason.”
She didn’t seem amused by that. “Okay. Then that’s your role, okay? You be the super dad who talks things out and keeps his cool. That’s on you. But you might want to know that Dylan’s in trouble at school.”
