Beck and Call by Abby Gordon Read Free Book Online Page B

key remote to unlock and disarm the alarm. He opened her door. “She can make her own decisions.” Serena slid in and sat in shock as he closed the door and walked around. Her boss was back in a huge way. Impersonal and cold, not worried about others. Keith got in and looked at her before starting the car.
    “I know you think I should say something to her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. We went over that already.” He backed out and headed for the exit. “By not saying anything…”
    “You let her walk into a situation where she could be terribly hurt,” Serena said shortly. The urge to tell him what had happened welled up and she squashed it. With his current attitude, she wasn’t 43

    Abby Gordon

    sure what his reaction would be. That didn’t quell the need to push him to talk to Penny. “Keith, she’s barely twenty-two years old and she has no idea what kind of man Mark really is. You can’t just stand by and let her do something that could ruin her life!”
    “How do you know she doesn’t already know this side of Mark?” he asked. “She may have decided this is what she wants out of life.” Pausing at the exit, he glanced at her. “Which way?”
    She quickly gave him directions.
    “No, I’ve talked to her. He’s the first man she has ever been serious about and she’s in love with the idea of being in love.” Serena shook her head, searching for the words to convince him. “Mark won’t care if he hurts her, and he will because he doesn’t love her the way she needs to be loved. I doubt he knows how to love,” she muttered, glancing out the window, then at him. “I don’t understand how you can say nothing and stand by as she gets hurt. Is that how it works in your family?” She gave him a sad look. “I’m guessing it is. Sounds like a pretty lonely way to live.”
    “And how close are you to your family?” he retorted, not liking how close her barbs hit their target. “I don’t remember seeing any flowers from them.”
    “I went home a couple weeks ago and my parents had a party for me then,” she told him in a quiet dignified way.
    “Your parents are still married to each other?”
    “Yes,” she nodded.
    “Still in love?” he pressed.
    She hesitated.
    “The ‘in’ part varies from time to time,” she admitted. “But the love and commitment have always been there. They still live in the house they bought two years after they got married and where 44

    Beck And Call

    they raised five children. They’ve had arguments that became yelling matches, but they took their differences and made them work for them.”
    “What differences?”
    “Mother’s more impulsive and reactive than Father. He plans everything out and refuses to change his mind once he’s decided on something.
    Mother is more willing to listen and change her opinion on some things.” Serena bit her bottom lip.
    “Some things are harder to talk to Mother about than Father. Mother can be decidedly old-fashioned.”
    “About what?”
    “Roles for men and women, for one,” she sighed, letting her head rest on the leather. “Women can work, she accepts that, but she doesn’t see it as the best way. Mother sees marriage and family as the best role for women. It’s difficult for her to understand that I am not there yet in my life. My parents have a strict sense of right and wrong. If the line is crossed, you cannot reason through it. Father calls it an excuse of the weak.”
    “Sounds like hard people to live with.”
    “They lived a hard life. It’s only been the past fifteen years or so that things have gotten easier for them financially. Not that they see it that way. My paternal grandfather was a harsh, hard man because of the Depression, and I think it scarred my father to an extent.”
    “The grandfather that died?”
    She nodded.
    “He had only three sons and eleven grandsons by the time I was born. He called me his special angel,” she smiled softly. “I could talk him into things that no