For Love and Family by Victoria Pade Page B

Carla decreed.
    The matter seemed to be solved then, and, with that accomplished, the couple said good-night and left.
    There were things Terese wanted to say to Hunter once they were gone but before she had the chance, he began the tug-of-war with Johnny to get him to bed.
    It wasn’t until an hour later, after the efforts of both Terese and Hunter had the little boy down for the night and Terese was helping Hunter pick up Johnny’s toys in the living room that she finally found the opportunity.
    â€œYou know,” she said then, “it’s perfectly normal to feel the way you do about Johnny right now. And the way you felt after your wife died. Some things are like emotional earthquakes. Remember when you said the other night that last week’s ordeal with Johnny shook you? That’s exactly what happens. The foundation of things feels shaky for a while, until you get used to whatever changes come out of those emotional earthquakes and things settle down again. Right now it’s as if you’re on edge, waiting for aftershocks.”
    â€œIs this the psychology professor talking?” he asked with a hint of amusement to his voice.
    Terese smiled at him from across the coffee table where they were putting puzzle pieces back in a box. “It is,” she confirmed.
    â€œWas it the psychology professor talking before, too, when you were tiptoeing around that stuff aboutadoptive parents being insecure if the birth family is in the picture?”
    â€œThen, too. But both things are true, you know.”
    â€œI’m sure they are,” he allowed. But he still didn’t seem to want to discuss either of them.
    In Terese’s experience that wasn’t an unusual response. When people found out what field her education and training were in, they either wanted a quick therapy session or they went to extremes to avoid it so she didn’t analyze them. Obviously Hunter was in the second category. But that was fine with her. The last thing she wanted to be was his therapist.
    Then Hunter veered even farther away from that by turning the conversation toward her job. “So you teach psychology, huh? How did that come about?”
    There was amusement in Terese’s tone this time. “I’ll bet you’re figuring there are years and years of psychoanalysis in my background that sucked me in.”
    â€œIs that the way it was?”
    â€œNope,” she said, mimicking his periodic answer to things she asked him. “I just developed an interest in it when I took my first psychology class in my freshman year of college. Actually, I realized I had spent my life sort of standing on the sidelines, observing people and their behavior, thinking about what made them tick, and when I discovered a class that talked about that, I also discovered my niche.”
    They’d finished putting away Johnny’s puzzle and the rest of his toys, and Hunter sat on one end of thesofa, angled toward the center, his arm stretched across the top of the back cushion.
    There was no hint that he was ready for her to go out to the cabin tonight. In fact, something about his attitude seemed to say he expected her to sit, too. So that was what Terese did—sit on the couch but at the opposite end.
    It must have been what he’d had in mind because he merely went on with their conversation. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’m kind of surprised that you work at all.”
    She knew what he was thinking—that she was a trust-fund baby who didn’t need to earn a living. “I don’t do it for the money. I do it because I enjoy it.”
    â€œDoes your sister work?”
    â€œEve? Unless you count working at being Eve and keeping up with the latest fashions and hairstyles and makeup, no. But maybe if I looked the way she does instead of the way I do—”
    He cut her off before she could finish that. “That day at your house your sister made a not-too-nice