No Knight Needed by Stephanie Rowe Page A

it. She had to handle it, because where would she be if she let Griffin fight her battles, and then he left? “Griffin has work to do, and he won’t be sharing dinners with us the way other renters have.”
    “Are you serious?” Katie gaped at her. “Why not? What’s wrong with Griffin?”
    Other than the fact he made Clare’s entire body melt with desire and all sorts of womanly feelings that she barely even recognized, let alone knew how to deal with? “Nothing, but—”
    “You just don’t want a man at our table, do you?” Katie grabbed her cereal bowl in a dramatic display of disgust. “Jeremy thinks you’re frigid, you know. That’s why you never date anyone.”
    “What?” Clare gaped at her daughter as Griffin started coughing, doing a pathetic job at hiding his amusement.
    “If you are frigid, that’s cool with me, but don’t make Griffin starve because of it.” Katie sighed as she walked past them. “I’m going out.”
    Clare didn’t dare even look at Griffin. Frigid? Really? “No, you’re staying here today.”
    Katie shot Clare a look of bored condescension, as if it was so beneath her to have to educate her mother as to the basics of life. “I’m going to the library to study with Sara. Physics test tomorrow. I can’t pass it without her help.”
    “Physics test? And you were going camping?” Clare felt like banging her head against the wall. “What kind of responsible decision is that?”
    Katie met her gaze, her eyes steely and rebellious. “I hate physics, and I’d rather fail it and have a fun weekend, than stay in all weekend and pass the test. I don’t want to go to MIT this summer, Mom. I really don’t. I don’t want to spend my summer with a bunch of geeks creating some robot that can sift through sand on Mars. Seriously. “
    Clare sighed. “I know you don’t, sweetheart.” She was beginning to suspect she was never going to convince her daughter it was a good idea.
    Katie met her gaze, waiting. “So?”
    “So, you still have to go.”
    “You’re impossible!” Katie groaned with aggravation and stomped out of the room. There was the clank of her bowl being dropped on the counter, and then the quick tempo of her feet as she raced up the creaky old stairs.
    Clare sighed, and then she saw Griffin watching her. Assessing her parenting capacities? She didn’t need that. She got enough grief from Eppie. “Not a word,” she said to him, holding up her hand to stave off any comments. “I don’t want to hear it.”
    He held up his hands in surrender, his face so innocent she almost laughed. “Since I can’t eat dinner here, I was just wondering where I’m going to get takeout in this town. Got any suggestions?”
    “Takeout?” Was she really going to make him order takeout? Clare capitulated at his innocent expression. No, of course she wasn’t. And not just because the rental agreement he’d signed specified that food was included. She didn’t want people messing in her kitchen, and she’d learned long ago that the best way to keep them out was to feed them until they couldn’t bear the thought of even going near her kitchen except at mealtimes.
    The truth was that she actually did kind of want a man at her dinner table. Not just a man. This one. This stranger from the outside, with obligations and baggage, a man who didn’t know how to hug a teenage girl, yet somehow managed to cull utter adoration from the same. He got Katie to smile. And that was something she would treasure.
    But as Clare heard Katie’s door slam, she grimaced. What was she doing, bringing Griffin into their home? Into their lives? He’d be gone the minute they got used to him. She couldn’t afford to rely on him—
    Then she felt his hand on her shoulder. Her body tightened, and she looked up into his intense dark eyes. “What?”
    His thumb rubbed softly over her shoulder. “The summer study at MIT is a great program. I went to it when I was fifteen. We worked on computer chips