Love Is More Than Skin Deep (A Hidden Hearts Novel Book 4) by Mary Crawford Page A

like talking to most people,” Ketki confesses softly.
    “Oh, Ki, I love talking to you too and it’s not just because you bring me cookies,” Shelby responds tearfully. She leans forward in the chair to give Ketki a hug and has to draw in a deep breath as she winces in pain.
    It’s all I can do not to scowl at the situation and make it worse. It’s the most helpless feeling in the world to see her hurting and not be able do anything about it. This is not helping my stress level at all. There must be something I can do to help relieve her pain. In what I’m learning is very typical Shelby fashion, she just grits her teeth and doesn’t say a single word. She might not want to talk about it, but I need to see how she’s really doing. It might not be the coolest thing I’m ever going to do in my life, but I am about to unabashedly throw Tristan under the bus as I make a suggestion to my daughter, “Hey, Ketki when I called Tristan this morning he was telling me that he had new updates to his new program and he wanted players who had never seen it before to take a shot at it. Do you want to go check it out and see if you like it?”
    “Dad, I thought you said that we were here to hang out with Shelby, why do you want me to play with video games now?” Ketki asks with an incredulous expression on her face.
    “Don’t worry, I’ll keep her company, I promise. You know me, I like to go on and on about really boring, complicated stuff. You might as well be having fun,” I try to hedge, embarrassed.  
    “Whatever,” Ketki answers as she digs a ponytail holder out of her pocket and stands in front of me waiting for me to do the usual. “You know that I know Shelby is sick, right? She told me. It’s not like she could keep it secret — the doctor dug craters all over her whole body like an archaeologist.”
    I nod in agreement as I finish Ketki’s hair and briefly bend down to kiss the top of her head.
    For the first time today, I see Shelby with her trademark wide grin. It’s a little crooked because of all the swelling in her face, but she still looks beautiful to me. She holds her hand out to Ketki and says, “I really appreciate you looking out for me — but your dad isn’t going to do anything to hurt me. He probably just wants to talk about grown-up medical stuff like what medicines I’m on or what kind of physical therapy I did last week. It’s really boring, tedious stuff, so you might as well go play games with Tristan. I can assure you that his stuff is massively intriguing. I’ve been down to his little computer lab of sorts down there — it’s like the set of a spy movie. Just the equipment alone is fascinating. I bet the software is downright awe-inspiring. If he gave me the chance to check it out and I felt up to it, you better believe I would be the first in line. Sadly, my skills on the computer are not as sharp as yours, so I think he’d rather have you over me.”
    Ketki perks up when she hears that little tidbit of information. “Really? You think so? I’ve been kicked out of groups on the ‘net, because they don’t think I know anything, because I’m just a kid or because I’m a girl.”
    I lay my hand on my daughter’s shoulder as I respond, “I agree Ketki, it’s totally not fair. So, do you want to show one of the best program designers in the whole world that you know your stuff?”
    “Is pi the coolest number in the world?” Ketki asks as she sprints down the hall. That’s the interesting — and sometimes perilous thing about her — she doesn’t have a medium speed. It’s either totally stop or totally go, nothing in between.
    Over my shoulder, I comment to Shelby, “I’ll be right back, I want to talk to you —”

HOW ODD. THE ALLEGEDLY HOT guy on the cover of the romance novel just isn’t doing it for me. Oh, I’m sure his sunny good looks, are appealing to some, but I’m finding myself drawn to an entirely different kind of man. Actually one man. One