Chapter Fifteen #3
The house had fallen silent. Flipping the bacon, she peered back into the living room to see if they were still there, instead seeing Daisy’s head pop up from beside Thaddeus, a finger over her mouth as she whispered, “Shh.”
Thaddeus’s head was tipped back, hat cast aside.
Charlie rounded the couch. Magic Treehouse Blizzard of the Blue Moon lay splayed open on his belly.
His phone on his knee now dark. Out cold.
With Artex on his feet like a foot warmer and the chick in its box beside them. His chest rose and fell peacefully.
“What should we do?” Daisy whisper-giggled.
Charlie took in Thaddeus’s profile. His strong nose. His stubbly jaw that hadn’t been shaved yet. His blond hair the color of barley and straw fringing around his head and neck. Trouble.
I should wake him up.
“We’ll let him sleep,” Charlie whispered, her mouth betraying her brain, and smiled at her daughter. “Go get dressed so we can eat and hit the farm market for dinner fixings.”
“Can we get Pumpkin some things, so he feels more comfortable?” Daisy whispered.
“Daisy May, if we start buying it things, it’ll get attached to us.” We’ll get attached.
Things people attached themselves to had a way of being ripped away from them. All her belongings when she’d walked away from Jason. All her dreams when he’d first cowed her into a corner. Her uncle’s cabin. Her scholarship. Her dignity.
And already she’d asked much of the university to allow a dog for her daughter and the exorbitant pet deposit she’d been required to pay.
Daisy frowned. God, her girl was already attached. Charlie gently picked up the chick. Pet a finger across its head and back.
Maybe a nearby farm would take her?
“I-I just mean, I know he can’t stay, but we should make him comfortable, right, Momma?”
Charlie smiled wistfully at her girl with the giant heart whose brain raced too fast to always match the words in her head with the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Of course, we can keep her comfy.” Nodded her head toward the stairs. “Go on.”
When Daisy, scampering away, whirled back around. “Maybe T. Rex will wanna stay for dinner!” she blurted out.
Charlie threw a finger across her lips.
“Oh,” Daisy whispered, throwing her palm over her lips. “You don’t wanna wake him neither.”
Charlie’s gaze flitted back down to him, so peaceful. No, she didn’t. She liked the way he looked, lying here among her things.
“But he has to pick up vitamins in town for the cows on his farm, sweet girl.”
“But I like him,” Daisy whispered back. “I don’t want him to leave.”
No sweet girl, you want a daddy, and that’s not fair to Thaddeus, either, to pin your hopes on him. Even if he sure had looked like he wanted to fit.
“I like him too.” Charlie returned to the kitchen, thinking, took the bacon off the heat, and cracked an egg onto it, slicing up an orange, putting together a plate, killing the power.
Thaddeus had looked tired, she’d recalled. Why? If the hose had been an easy fix, like he’d sworn, it wasn’t like it would have taken him all night to do it.
Charlie returned to the living room, curious now. She eased his keys onto the table beside him as his chest rose and fell peacefully. She fetched a knitted throw from the back of the couch.
A do-over … was it a mistake to welcome another man into the house?
Especially one with such a reputation? Would she be able to handle the fan pics posted online?
Would she be able to handle the tits flashed at shows?
Will you be able to handle the suspicions that will inevitably creep in and poison your trust?
The real question burned like acid down her throat. Her heart jumped at the thought of something with him, but her blasted brain kept saying, pump the brakes, men can’t be trusted. The rush of attraction arcing between them like live wires by no means indicated a happily ever after.
She set aside the book and moved his phone, then eased off his glasses, a smile ghosting her lips at how scholarly they’d made him look, not at all like the mechanic-stained heartthrob, then draped the throw over him, feeling his warmth radiating off of him as she tucked it around his shoulders.
Smelled faint hints of yesterday’s aftershave—teak and mint cutting through the mechanic oil.
Sharp and alluring, just like his sense of humor and megawatt smile, and for a moment, she just took him in.
Appreciated the feel of a man in the house who’d taken such good care of her and Daisy without asking for anything in return.
Reaching down, she caressed the angle of his jaw, the crest of his cheek, and relished how he gently stirred, nuzzling his face into her touch and pressing his lips unconsciously to her skin as if he’d intended to kiss it.
Desperately wanted to know where they stood.
Yet desperately didn’t want to jump into this, two feet, only for this man to break her heart.
She walked away, glanced back—they always look back when they like you—resting her hand on the doorframe, and listened to soft breaths escaping him, pretending for one secret second that this was normal, that Daisy’s blue eyes had come from him—
Stop it.