Falling For Zoe (The Camerons of Tide's Way #1) Read Online Free

off her like water off a duck.
    In Jake’s opinion, it was hard enough just being sixteen without having to feel like you had to fill in for a mother who didn’t care enough to hang around until you grew up. Jake did his best not to demand too much of Ava. He tried even harder not to let her take on too much responsibility. She needed to be her own person. To have the space and freedom to find out who she was, and what she wanted from life. Beyond being Travis’s girlfriend, anyway. Jake snorted in disgust.
    Travis worried Jake. Travis was so much like Jake had been as a teenager—hell bent on enjoying life and equally hell bent on getting laid. And since Travis seemed to have set his sights on Ava, Jake had every intention of thwarting that goal. Jake had learned his lesson the hard way, and he wasn’t about to let his daughter follow in her mother’s footsteps if he could help it.
    Which was why Travis, who’d stopped by unannounced just as dinner was finishing, was settled on the sofa in the den with his arm wrapped about Ava’s shoulders instead of in the back seat of Travis’s car parked on some dark, deserted, dead end road. At least the make out session couldn’t progress beyond some torrid kissing and a grope or two. Not with Ava’s father patrolling the porch outside the sliding glass doors. He’d give them another ten minutes, then go in and break up whatever steamy little scene they had going.
    Jake walked to the far end of the porch and noticed the lit upstairs window in the old Jolee homestead. His mind raced back to the oddly expectant look that had lurked in Zoe’s eyes as they’d stood on her porch after he’d walked her home. He’d been caught by surprise at his own unexpected and entirely male response. He’d never responded to any woman except Marsha like that. Not even in the two years since she’d walked out on him.
    He’d said a hurried good night and hustled home, trying to forget the sudden surge of desire. But Zoe wasn’t the kind of woman a man put out of mind that easily. From the sexy package to the sassy confidence. Or the easy, uncomplicated way she’d dealt with Celia, the twins, and Ava.
    As they’d consumed Ava’s charred southern grilled steak and stir-fried vegetables, Zoe had chatted effortlessly with Celia about memories from long before even his time. She’d engaged the twins in an amusing discussion about the best color to paint Zoe’s mailbox and moved on to discuss the merits of a book she and Ava had both read recently. At Ava’s urging, Zoe had even managed to get Jake to recount his less than heroic rescue of a mother cat with three kittens when its owner had called the fire department in tears because they were trapped in the attic of her garage. It somehow felt as if they’d all known Zoe for years.
    Jake gripped the railing and let out a heavy sigh. If he were smart, he’d do his very best to keep Zoe Callahan at arm’s length. That look she’d given him had stirred up needs he’d forgotten he had and wasn’t sure he was ready for right now. He didn’t want to ruin another woman’s life by giving in to his libido with the same lack of restraint he’d possessed as a teenager. Every gut instinct in him told him Zoe wasn’t the kind of woman who took sex lightly in spite of the inviting warmth in her eyes. Besides, he had an example to set for Ava and Travis. He was the adult now, and he needed to remember that.
    The final divorce decree he’d received that afternoon was sitting on his dresser where he’d put it when he stripped down for his shower. He decided to leave it there to remind himself that screwing around might be temporarily enjoyable, but in the long run, it could mess up your entire life.
    Marsha had been beyond pretty. She’d been hot—the kind of hot that drives teenage boys crazy. Which, of course, was why Jake had pursued her in the first place. But long before they’d lost their virginity together in the bleachers above the