Incarnate by Claire Kent

Author:Claire Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub

Anna wasn’t even fifteen yet. But she had the power to hurt Seth—deeply.

Her eyelashes lowered. “No. I guess not.”

Erin let out her breath.

Then Anna’s eyes shifted back up to Seth’s face, and her mouth quirked a little with an irrepressible humor she’d gotten from Erin.

Seth’s mouth twitched in response. “That’s a relief.”

Erin chuckled—absurdly touched by this small moment of father-daughter bonding. Then the server came over to take their drink orders and the conversation became friendly and casual.

Erin asked Anna something about school and that was all she needed to get Anna to start talking. Anna held court all the while they were waiting for their dinners, blooming more and more from having the undivided attention of her parents even as she tried to maintain her wry, witty demeanor.

In a lot of ways, Anna was more knowledgeable, more responsible, and more mature than a lot of girls her age. She had a strong moral foundation and a wider range of perspectives and experiences.

But she’d also been deeply sheltered by the love and resources of her family. She wasn’t nearly as jaded or self-sufficient as Erin had been at her age.

And for some reason the recognition comforted Erin. Her girls were growing up, but they weren’t grown up yet. And Anna clearly still needed her parents as much as she always had.

She wanted to somehow share this reassurance with Seth—since she knew he needed it too. But when she glanced over to meet his eyes, she saw that he was frowning.

As their dinners arrived, Erin kept looking over at her husband. He was sustaining his part of the conversation, but his eyes kept straying to some spot between Erin and Anna’s chairs, and his frown got more and more obvious.

“Is something wrong, Seth?” Erin murmured, taking her first bite of shrimp.

Seth refocused on their conversation, although he appeared to be bristling inwardly. “No. Go on, Anna. You were saying you had to interview the chair of the school board for that story you were writing?”

“Yeah.” Anna glanced behind her, looking in confusion for what had preoccupied her father. “So I called him…”

She continued, telling her story in endless, enthusiastic detail. But, as she went on, Seth gradually got distracted again until he was glowering and stewing with obvious temper.

Anna’s voice kept trailing off as she lost her place in her story. She exchanged several confused looks with Erin until she finally asked, “What’s wrong, Dad?”

Seth’s jaw was clenched and his hand was fisted around his fork as he held up a forkful of grilled vegetables. “Nothing.”

Anna made an indignant sound at this blatant falsehood, and Erin reached over to put her hand on Seth’s tense arm. “Seth?”

Under the implied insistence of her soft voice, Seth finally relented. “I thought I might be able to enjoy a family dinner without some fuck—”

“Seth,” Erin interrupted in an automatic reproach. Obviously, Anna had heard language of that nature before—her aunt Liz had been a bad influence in that regard from the beginning—but Erin couldn’t seem to stop herself from an instinctive objection.

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