“She still going to school with Zeke?” Kristen nodded, and Ross said maddeningly, “Doesn’t sound much like grounding to me.”

“I was running late and-” Kristen stopped short, clenching her teeth. She glared at him. “Why am I explaining this to you? It’s not like you were around to drive her.”

“Your decision, not mine,” he reminded her in that irritating way of his. That much was true. She’d asked him to move out and he’d complied. Now he shifted on the chair to face her and she noticed the square cut of his jaw, still as strong as it had been when she’d met him nearly twenty years ago.

“Okay, let’s not go there. The blame game doesn’t really work.”

“Agreed.”

Damn the man. Was that a twinkle in his gray eyes? Was he finding some humor in this impossible situation?

Ross stretched out of the chair, pushing it back so hard it screeched against the tile. Shoving his hair from his eyes, he stood and she was reminded again that Ross Delmonico was one heart-stopping hunk of a man. It was no wonder she’d fallen head over heels for him all those years ago. She’d been vulnerable, hurting, even bristly after the end of her senior year of high school. She’d moved to Seattle by the end of June, gotten hired at a clothing store, and with the help of student loans and scholarships had started classes at the University of Washington in the fall.

Ross Delmonico, a graduate student, had been her TA in chemistry for the spring term. He’d taken the time to tutor her personally, and as the term had progressed the study sessions had segued into a series of casual dates. They’d explored the city, drinking coffee on the waterfront, shopping at Pike Street Market, poking through old book and antique shops in Pioneer Square, getting caught in the rain at the locks. They’d taken a ferry across the sound at sunset and watched the sun settle behind the jagged Olympic Mountains as they’d slowly fallen in love. Somehow she’d passed chemistry before switching her major to journalism. How ironic that their daughter was failing the same subject that had brought them together.