Challenging Matt by Julianna Morris

Author:Julianna Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE CELL PHONE ringing on Matt’s bedside table dragged him slowly from sleep. He read the display on the clock and groaned. It was 2:00 a.m. Once he’d stayed up that late every night, but not any longer.

“Uh...yeah?” he answered.

“Don’t tell me you were asleep, son,” cried Spence’s energetic voice. “We’re winding down here, but it’s still the top of the evening in Seattle.”

“Dad, you forget I’m a working guy now. I no longer party until five or six every morning.”

“How dreary.”

“Where are you, anyway?” Matt asked, yawning. In the background he heard steel drums, clinking glasses, and the chatter of a party.

“Jamaica. Can’t beat the Caribbean.”

“That explains the music.” Matt’s eyelids drifted down as he recalled the beaches and warm, crystalline waters of Montego Bay and the scantily clad women who swam in them.

Would Layne ever go topless? She had a hang-up about her appearance compared to her well-endowed sisters, but she’d be delicious in island gear and she really needed a break from investigating... Matt’s eyes popped open.

No.

Layne would slap him if she knew how thoroughly he’d envisioned her with sun-kissed skin and no tan lines. She might not be generously endowed, but there was something appealing about her trim lines. He needed to remember Layne’s fairy-tale faith in marriage and that “love of your life” nonsense. The most he could offer was a week in Fiji or Montego Bay, and while he’d never wanted to spend an entire week with any woman before, she’d still see it as an insult.

Matt shook himself. “Why are you calling, Dad?”

“It’s been a while and I wanted to say hi. Brought Delia down for a little sailing.”

Delia?

“Is that a boat, or one of your girlfriends? Oh, God, it isn’t a new wife, is it?”

Spence chuckled. There wasn’t much that bothered him. “Nope, just someone I met on a layover in Chicago. Lovely girl. Wants to be an author. No stamina though, went to bed hours ago.”

“She’d better be over eighteen,” Matt warned.

“Twenty-four and just got her graduate degree. A Fulbright scholar. Stacked, with mile-long legs. I keep telling her she could make a fortune in Vegas.”

“I’m sure she appreciates the career advice.”

Matt didn’t know how Spence did it—a beautiful, twenty-four-year-old Fulbright scholar, thirty-plus years his junior?

He got up and wandered into the living room. The lights of the city were sparkling on the skyline above the dark expanse of Lake Union.

“Maybe you should have her talk to April and Tamlyn’s mother. Or is Ginny no longer performing in Las Vegas?” he asked, knowing perfectly well that his former-showgirl ex-stepmother was living comfortably on her divorce settlement in Barcelona. Ginny hadn’t kicked her legs on stage since giving birth to his twin sisters.

“I wouldn’t know.”

Actually, Spence probably didn’t know. Once his children reached eighteen and he was no longer dealing with support issues, he tried to forget his ex-wives.

“I miss you, son,” Spence said unexpectedly. “We used to see each other more often before you reformed.”

“You could come to Seattle for a visit.

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