“Why? Because you think I’ll get pregnant like you did? That’s not fair.”
“It’s not about that, Tiffany. It’s about such things as keeping your reputation intact and not getting involved in anything you aren’t ready for.”
“It is about what happened to you when you were sixteen, Mom. And how do you know what I am or am not ready for? You want to shelter me and you can’t. You’ve talked to me, but the choice of what I do is ultimately mine.”
“No, it’s not,” Kylie bit out. “As long as you’re living under my roof, I make the rules and you will abide by them.”
“I can’t, Mom. I care too much for Marcus and we have news for you and Mr. Steele. We are madly in love!” she almost shouted. “And nothing either of you say is going to make us not be together, whether it’s at school or someplace else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Tiffany said stalking off to her room, “that I don’t want to talk anymore.”
Chance leaped to his feet. The sound of his chair crashing to the floor echoed loudly in the kitchen. “What do you mean you might not go to college but stay in Charlotte to be closer to Tiffany Hagan?” he shouted. His anger had clearly reached the boiling point.
“There’s no reason to get upset, Dad. What’s the big deal if I decided to hang around here and go to college? One university is just as good as another.”
Chance rubbed his hand down his face, trying to fight for composure, and quickly decided to use another approach. “Marcus,” he said calmly, “I’m sure Tiffany Hagan is a nice girl, but you’re only sixteen. In another couple of years you’ll finish high school and go to college where you will meet plenty of other nice girls. You have such a bright future ahead of you. I’d hate to see you get too serious about any girl now.”
A stubborn expression settled on Marcus’s face. “She’s not just any girl, Dad. Tiffany is the girl I plan to marry one day.”
“Marry!” Chance nearly swallowed the word in shock. “How did marriage get into the picture? You’re only sixteen! I know you think you really care for this girl and—”
“It’s more than that, Dad, and the sooner you and Tiffany’s mother realize it, the better. Tiffany and I are madly in love and we want to be together forever. There’s nothing either of you can say or do to stop us, so you may as well accept it.”
“Like hell I will.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Marcus said as he walked out of the kitchen toward his bedroom.
Total shock kept Chance from going after his son and wringing his neck.
Kylie paced the floor. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. Tiffany hadn’t come out of her room yet, which was probably the best thing.
Love!
At fifteen her daughter thought she was in love. Madly in love at that! Kylie swallowed a thickness in her throat when she realized how her mother must have felt sixteen years ago, dealing with her when she’d been obsessed with Sam Miller.
She paused when she heard the phone ring and quickly crossed the room to pick it up, thinking it was probably Lena checking to see how things with Tiffany had gone. “Hello.”
“We need to talk, Ms. Hagan.”
Kylie blinked at the sound of the ultra sexy male voice. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who the caller was, or to know he’d evidently had had another talk with his son. She sighed. Yes, they did need to talk. “You name the place and I’ll be there.”
“All right.” After a quiet pause, he said. “They think they’re in love. Madly in love.”
Kylie shook her head. “So I heard. Louder than I really cared to, in fact.”
“Same here. Do you know where the Racetrack Café is?”
“Yes.”
“Can you meet me there around noon tomorrow?”
Considering what was going on with Tiffany and his son, she really didn’t have a choice. Hopefully, together they could devise a way to stop the young couple before they got into more trouble than they could handle. “Yes, I can meet you there.”
“Fine, I’ll see you then.”
Chance arrived at the restaurant early to make sure they got a table. Jointly owned by several race car drivers on the NASCAR circuit, the Racetrack Café was a popular eatery in town. He hadn’t been seated more than five minutes when he glanced over at the entrance to see Kylie Hagan walk in.
He had hoped his mental picture of her from yesterday had been wrong, but it hadn’t. Kylie Hagan was an attractive woman. Every man in the place apparently thought so, too, judging by the looks they gave her. Not for the first time he wondered about her age and how someone who looked so young could have a fifteen-year-old daughter.
He watched her glance around before she spotted him. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face as she walked toward him. But, he quickly decided, it didn’t matter. Smiling or not, she looked gorgeous dressed in a pair of black slacks and a blue pullover sweater. And those same curves that he’d convinced himself had to be a figment of his imagination made her slacks a perfect fit for her body. Even her walk was mesmerizing and sexy.
When she got closer, he saw the wariness around her eyes, which led him to believe that she’d probably gone a round or two with her daughter sometime during that day, as he’d done with Marcus. He wondered if the discussion had been about the “his and hers” tattoos Marcus had indicated he and Tiffany were thinking about getting.
Chance stood when she reached the table. “Ms. Hagan.”
“Mr. Steele.”
He thought they were overdoing the formality, but felt it was best to keep things that way for now. After all, this was nothing more than a business meeting, and the only item on the agenda was a discussion about their children.
After they had taken their seats, he asked, “Would you like to order anything? They have the best hamburgers and French fries in town.”
A small smile touched Kylie’s lips. “So I’ve heard. But no, I’m fine, you go ahead and order something if you’d like. It’s just that my most recent conversation with Tiffany has killed my appetite.”
Chance heard the quiver in her voice and recalled his own conversation with Marcus that morning before he’d left for school. “I take it Tiffany told you about the tattoo.”
He watched her nostrils flare as she drew in a silent breath. “Yes, she told me. Matching lovebirds on their tummies right above their navels, I understand.”
“That’s my understanding as well.” A soft chuckle erupted from his throat. There was a cloud hanging over his head that refused to go away and he had to find amusement anywhere he could to keep his sanity. But he had to believe this was just one part of parenthood that he would get through, and for some reason it was important to him for Kylie Hagan to believe that as well.
“Things are going to be all right, Ms. Hagan,” he said soothingly. “That’s why we’re meeting today, to make sure of it.” He flashed her a smile.
She glanced up and met his gaze. “I want to believe that,” she said quietly. “Under the circumstances I think we should forgo formality. Please call me Kylie.”
“Okay, and I’m Chance.” After a pause he said, “Kylie, I want you to believe things will work out. We have to think positively that we’ll get through this particular episode in our children’s lives. We have good kids—they’re just a little headstrong and stubborn. But I believe with some parental guidance they’ll be fine.”
“I