Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

40 DANCING IN THE MOONLIGHT
Why should he? She was three years younger, the same
age as Seth, and a girl to boot. A double whammy
against her, as far as he’d been concerned.
Oh, he saw her every day, since she and the Dalton
boys rode the same school bus and even shared a bus stop,
a little covered shack out on the side of the road between
their houses to protect them in inclement weather.
Her father constructed it, of course. It never would have
occurred to Hank Dalton his sons might be cold waiting
outside for the bus in the middle of a January blizzard.
Even if he thought of it, he probably wouldn’t have
troubled himself to make things easier on his sons. Jake
could almost hear him. A little snow never hurt anybody.
What are you, a bunch of girls?
But Abel Cruz had been a far different kind of father.
Kind and loving and crazy about his little girl. Jake
could clearly remember feeling a tight knot of envy in
his chest whenever he saw them together, at their easy,
laughing relationship.
Maggie had been a constant presence in his life but
one that didn’t make much of an impact on him until one
cold day when he was probably eleven or twelve.
That morning Seth had been a little wheezy as they
walked down the driveway to the bus. Jake hadn’t
thought much about it, but while they were waiting for
the bus, his wheezing had suddenly developed into a
full-fledged asthma attack, a bad one.
Wade, the oldest, hadn’t been at the stop to take
control of the situation that day since he’d been in the
hospital in Idaho Falls having his appendix out, and
Marjorie had stayed overnight with him.