Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(41)
“No, I bought them a bed. As in, first one. It was either that or make them sleep on the floor, and I’m not that bad a hostess. My bubbeh would never forgive me.”
Dag’s smile faded. “You speak often of your grandmother, but never of your parents.”
The quiet observation caught Kylie by surprise. And here she’d thought he tuned out most of what spilled out of her mouth. “Yeah, well, I’m closer with her than I am with them.”
“Why is that?”
The question still niggled at her, even though it had been asked before. Dag wasn’t the first person to notice how tight she and her parents weren’t. Still, she never liked answering it, so she gave her pat response. “Just different personalities. We don’t really get each other.”
And some of us never tried. But Kylie never said that part out loud.
The Guardian seemed to digest that answer, but instead of moving on, he reached out to grasp her hand, pulling her toward the side of the bed. “Explain. What is there to ‘get’ about being family?”
Whoa, he wanted to go there?
She shook her head. “I think some people related by blood aren’t suited to be family to each other, and some people who meet by chance and start out as strangers can be better family members than the ones you’re born with. That second kind, Bran was that for me. Wynn, too.”
“And your parents were the first.”
Persistent nudnik, wasn’t he? He asked so calmly, though, and sounded so genuinely curious that she couldn’t quite bring herself to just brush him off.
“Definitely the first.” She sighed and perched warily on the edge of the bed. “They didn’t have me until they were older than most first-time parents. Only-time parents, actually. They never intended to have kids. I came as quite the shock when they found out. I’m not sure they ever really adjusted to the idea. They had careers they both felt really passionately about. Maybe they just didn’t have a ton left over, especially not for a precocious kid with a thing for electronics who didn’t take well to being told to keep quiet and not bother the adults.”
“What careers do they have that took priority over their child?”
“Mom’s a finance type. CFO of a venture capital firm where I grew up, in Connecticut. Her head is always buried in numbers; and Dad is a law professor. Civil rights issues mostly. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or of the daughter.”
She delivered the line with a smile. After all, she’d been using it for years.
“I would think two such accomplished people would have been proud of having a child who succeeded in so much at such a young age,” Dag said. He’d heard the story of her early acceptance to Boston University, of her big invention and sale, as well as of her decision to drop out and pursue her own interests instead of getting her degree.
Kylie grimaced. “I guess in some ways they are. Mom likes that I impressed the tech world enough to earn a big paycheck, at least, but she seriously balked at the dropping out. Dad, too. And he’s always wished I would use my skill to do something more serious, something to ‘better the future of mankind.’ He thinks of that program I wrote as a toy. Like I said, they just don’t get it.”
“Unlike your grandmother.”
The thought made her smile. “Unlike bubbeh. She doesn’t really understand what I do either, but she’s hella proud of me for doing it better than anyone else. I think she just never had any preconceived notions about what I was supposed to be, so she just sat back and watched what I became.” Kylie thought back to some rather loud conversations among Esther, her son, and her daughter-in-law. Those made her smile turn a little toothy. “Plus, she was less than impressed with how my parents dealt with me. We ended up spending a lot of time together. She’s kind of my hero.”
“I would be pleased to meet her one day.” His tone rang with sincerity and something else Kylie couldn’t name, but it made her belly tighten and twist.
The way the long fingers still gripping her hand continually teased and tangled with her own made it plain hard to breathe. What was he doing to her? For the past week, he’d made it his mission in life to avoid her as if she were a bubonic plague carrier. Then yesterday they were forced back into close quarters, and he wakes up this morning wanting to get all friendly and cozy? The man changed moods like the Bruins changed forward lines—every forty seconds or so.
Needing to regain some of that space between them, Kylie made as if to tug her hand away and stand. “Come on. There are still boxes to move, and they’ll be here in a few more hours.”
Dag tightened his grip and shook his head. “Later. Stay here.”
She huffed impatiently and pulled harder. “Let go.”
She didn’t see him exert so much as an ounce of effort, but one minute she stood next to the bed leaning her entire body toward the door and the next she found herself yanked off her feet and lying sprawled over the chest of a very pleased-with-himself gargoyle.
“No,” he eventually rumbled, black eyes glinting. “I do not wish to.”
Panic warred with excitement in Kylie’s chest, but either way, she used the surge of energy to attempt to free herself. “Dag, come on. We’ve got stuff to do. Let me go.”
Another swift move had their positions reversed, and Kylie gazed up into a very smug, smiling face. “I told you, I do not wish to let you go, and as it happens I have a few ideas of my own regarding activities that you and I need to perform right away.”