She didn’t silently cheer at the disappointment in his eyes. Shedidn’t.
“I really enjoyed this, Morgan,” he said in that deep, resonant voice. “And I’d like to do it again.”
Morgan stepped outside into the chilly but pleasant air.
“I'll think about it,” she said.
Patrick looked at her. “That’s what you said about coming to the pub.”
“I showed up, didn't I?”
He smiled. “Yes. You did.”
He walked her to her car, then held the door open for her in a gentlemanly gesture. She tried to remember the last time someone had and couldn’t. Chivalry wasn’t dead in Pine Ridge.
“Drive safe.”
“If I can drive the Roosevelt Boulevard and the Schuylkill, I think I can handle the back roads of Pine Ridge.”
“I don’t know,” he countered, that playful glint back in his eyes. “Our bears don’t care much about the rules of the road. And possums? Absolute hooligans.”
She was smiling all the way back to Frank’s.
14
OMNISCIENT FATHERS
PATRICK
Patrick’s stepswere a little lighter when he came downstairs the next morning, despite catching only a few hours of sleep. Morgan had given him plenty to think about. She had a sharp, analytical mind, and when she was focused, she was laser-focused. Also nice—she’d affirmed his own thoughts and questions on the case.
He’d genuinely enjoyed her company, too. Oh, she’d been a little stiff at first, like she wasn’t comfortable in social situations. The key had been getting her to talk about her work. Instant confidence. The woman knew her stuff.
She had loosened up enough to touch on her life in Philly too. Not much, but enough for him to glean that outside of her work, she didn’t have much she was passionate about. Brief but telling comments suggested strained family relationships and no closefriends to speak of. The nicest thing she’d said about living in the city was that it was a good place to be invisible.
Not exactly high praise.
A loud knock had him looking to the back door, where an older man with the same dark hair and blue eyes grinned at him through the glass. Patrick waved him in.
“Hey, Dad. Come on in. What do you have there?”
Ian thrust the large cardboard box into his hands. “Care packages from your mother.”
Patrick laughed. “She knows I’m twenty-six, right?”
“She knows none of you bother to cook for yourselves,” came Ian’s reply.
“We cook.”
Ian looked at the dozen or so cereal boxes linked up on the counter, as well as the pizza boxes and takeout containers that lingered. “Uh-huh. You remember that I grew up with six brothers and a dad who thought grilled cheese and a can of Campbell’s was a 5-star meal, right?”
“Fair enough.”
“There are some bear claws from your aunt Maggie in there too.”
“Excellent.”
They stacked the containers in the fridge. Ian grabbed a couple of bear claws and put them on the table. “Breakfast of champions.”