A Maverick And A Half. Marie Ferrarella

that, Anderson hoped, was the end of that.

      Except that it wasn’t.

      “Actually, I haven’t,” Marina contradicted, addressing her response to the boy. “Except for your aunt, of course. Otherwise, I didn’t have any plans to sit with anyone in particular.” She smiled warmly at the boy who had given her some concern. “You’re welcome to join us,” she told Jake.

      Jake looked positively overjoyed.

      Anderson couldn’t remember ever seeing his son look so enthusiastic and overjoyed before.

      And then it hit him.

      His son had a crush on his teacher. There wasn’t any other explanation for the way he was acting or why he looked as if he was on the verge of doing cartwheels. This was a completely different boy from the one he’d roused from his room earlier.

      “Dad, too?” Jake asked eagerly.

      Anderson was completely floored by his son’s inclusion. Ordinarily, eleven-year-olds, whether they were male or female, were not nearly this thoughtful when it came to their parents. Or really anyone over the age of fifteen.

      He could remember himself at that age. In comparison to Jake, he’d been a thoughtless, self-centered little know-it-all. Granted, he’d outgrown that phase a long time ago, but he’d still gone through it. Jake, however, had somehow managed to bypass all that. It made Anderson realize just what a special, decent adolescent Jake really was.

      Even so, if Marina Laramie represented Jake’s big crush, he still didn’t intend to be put on the spot because of it. He was about to politely turn down the whole invitation before it was even tendered to him, but then he saw a quirky kind of smile curve the woman’s lips and heard Marina say, “Sure, why not? Your dad’s included, too.”

      Then the petite redhead turned her very bright blue eyes on him and said, “You’re welcome to join your sister and me—and your son—at the meeting if you like, Mr. Dalton.”

      She’d very deftly—and formally—put him on the spot. If he turned her down, he’d be the villain in his son’s eyes. He’d been struggling too hard to be Jake’s white knight to risk sabotaging himself just because it would entail spending an uncomfortable hour in the woman’s company. Uncomfortable not because he had any real, concrete reason to dislike her—he’d actually begun to think of Jake being a babysitter as a good thing—but because there was something about this woman that made him feel...well, antsy was as good a word for it as any, he decided.

      She made him strangely restless, like he couldn’t find a place for himself whenever she was around.

      He knew it was an absurd reaction, but it was his reaction and as long as he was experiencing it, he wasn’t going to be able to relax, certainly not anywhere around her.

      But he supposed that not being able to relax was in reality a small price to pay in exchange for seeing his son looking so happy.

      Looking like, he realized, a typical kid his age should look.

      “Can we, Dad?” Jake asked eagerly, turning his face up to his father’s.

      Anderson slipped a hand on his son’s shoulder in a gesture that spoke of familiarity and hopeful bonding. He reminded himself that this was all about Jake and nothing else, certainly not about him.