Welcome to My Family by Roz Denny Fox

Author:Roz Denny Fox [Fox, Roz Denny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

SLATER DROVE TO THE END of Kathleen’s street, where it struck him that he’d abandoned her. Or at least allowed a faceless man to run him off. Faceless, perhaps. But not nameless. And looking back in the rearview mirror, Slater saw a man step into the street. In silhouette, the guy had the bulk of a fullback.

Forced into a right-hand-turn lane by the one-way street, Slater circled the block. He’d let one woman go, let her believe he cared more for automobiles than for her. Slater didn’t know why, but he wasn’t inclined to let Kathleen slip away. And she’d probably run, not walk, once she stopped to consider how little it’d taken to get him to leave—the merest suggestion of an overprotective big brother.

As he rounded the corner leading back to the O’Halloran house, Slater caught sight of a dark blue Ridgecrest turning into the drive. His father’s car. The Ridgecrest was Louis Kowalski’s engineering dream, like the Special was Slater’s.

Slowing to a crawl, Slater peered through the darkness. Sure enough, his dad climbed out the driver’s side. A shorter man emerged from the passenger door. Three others sat in back, identifiable only because of the Ridgecrest’s powerful interior lights—a feature in which the elder Kowalski took immense pride.

From what Slater could tell, all of the car’s occupants were laughing and having a high old time. He cruised right on past. Obviously the miscreants were returning from Atlantic City. If they hadn’t won big, there was certainly no evidence of major loss in their demeanor. That was encouraging.

Again faced with a turn at the end of the street, Slater decided to head home rather than make another circuit. Bursting in on Kathleen seemed rather pointless. He suspected her brother and mother had an overabundance of hostility stored up for Tim. Furthermore, Slater judged the name Kowalski would be cause for a riot in the O’Halloran household about now.

If he took a shortcut home, he’d be able to catch his own dad when he rolled in…and ask a few questions. Normally Slater steered clear of L.J.’s section of the house. Since graduating from high school, he’d had his own quarters, complete with private entrance to the family mansion. When Slater moved from the main area, his dad’s only request had been that they continue to take meals together. As time went by, even that fell by the wayside. Because Slater spent more and more hours at the plant.

Not until after he’d parked and made his way through his quarters into a chilly, dark living room did Slater take a good look at the vast emptiness and wonder if his increased absence was to blame for his father’s erratic behavior.

Slater had assumed Louis would handle retirement as Great-aunt Adelaide had. It seemed logical to expect that the current board chairman would accept appointments to philanthropic foundations and spend his days running from breakfast meeting to luncheon meeting, and on to black-tie fund-raisers in the evenings.

Slater quickly lit a fire in the huge stone fireplace to help ward off the guilt that accompanied tonight’s chill.

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