18. Blinded by Desire
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dalton
Blinded by Desire
“W hat do you mean Missy is going to move in and be my companion?” Gran said with a laugh as she flipped bacon in the frying pan.
Dalton sat with his coffee at the table, watching and getting more nervous with each turn that she would flip the grease into the open flame of the gas stove.
“Remember, I agreed to stay out at Levi’s place if we had some help for you here at the big house, and now that I’m working full-time at the hospital, we need someone close by in case you need help.”
“Dalton, I’m not some senile old woman who forgets to get dressed or eat. I don’t need a babysitter.”
She moved the rest of the bacon out of the pan and set a full plate on the kitchen counter. But the burner remained on, and the grease in the pan began to spit and smoke. Dalton stood and walked around her to turn off the burner and move the pan back to a cooled area of the stovetop.
“Gran, I know you don’t want to need help. But it would really make Wes and me I feel so much better if you just let Missy look in on you. This house is so big, you won’t even know she’s here.”
His grandmother set her coffee mug down with more force than needed. “What are you not telling me, Dalton James?”
This was the moment of truth. Could he convince her to let this young woman act as her companion? Would his plan even work?
“The truth is, Missy could use some feminine wisdom. Declan is worried that she’s flailing after the death of his mom, who was basically like a mother to Missy also. She quit law school in the last year and wants to be an artist. She’s living with him and his twin boys in his small house that doubles as his home office in town, but there’s no room for her.”
“And she’s agreed to babysit an old lady so she can live out in the sticks and do what with her life?” Gran asked.
He could tell that she was intrigued and had softened to the idea.
“I thought we could let her turn the sunroom into a bit of an art studio. She’ll believe she’s getting free room and board to look out for you, and you can help guide her through a tough time. Maybe she’s not cut out for law, but she has to find something to do or go back to school. I will say, from what I saw, her art is very good. Maybe she can make something of it.”
“I’m just surprised any young woman would want to look out for an old woman and live out here.”
“Are you kidding? This house has the best views in Sandy Point,” Dalton said, moving out to the sunroom just beyond the kitchen. It was a smaller space with wood floors and a wall of windows, where you could see the beach through the tall grass and a few massive willows. But the space got hot in the afternoon even with the ceiling fan, so it was rarely used most of the year.
“Well, alright, I’ll meet her at least. I knew Declan’s mother, Ms. Honey, she was kind and hard-working. If Missy needs a place to land for a time, she may as well do it at Hart House.”
“That has a nice ring to it,” Dalton said.
“But I’ll need to set some ground rules with her. I’m not going to curtail my game night or garden parties, for one. So she’ll either join us or make herself scarce.”
He couldn’t help but laugh picturing the young woman navigating a bunch of tipsy old women dancing in the garden while they sipped mint juleps and margaritas.
“Great, she’ll be here in an hour, so we should figure out which room she can have, and maybe I can get an AC unit installed in the sunroom if you don’t run her off right away.”
His grandmother clicked her tongue at him and gave him a side-eye but was quick to tidy up the sunroom and get fresh linens in the room upstairs above the art studio, Levi’s old room.
To his surprise, when Missy arrived she and Gran hit it off right away, and both agreed not to bother each other much unless the other one needed something. Missy would check in on Gran three times a day, and was of course available at any time because she’d be working in her new art studio.
Dalton could tell that from the moment Missy saw the sunroom space she would have agreed to just about any terms.
“Do you know how much it would be to rent a space like this, even for a week, for an artist to work?” Missy asked, smiling as she looked around the well-lit space.
“Well, no, darling, I’m not in the habit of renting spaces to artists, but that’s not a bad idea,” Gran said.
“I’ve never had a proper room for my art, I usually just carve out a little corner to work in. And my nephews made that impossible.”
“Well, it’s yours now, and I’ll help you unpack your things. Then you can show me what you’ve got,” Gran said. “You must have more in the car?”
“Nope. I travel light, but I wouldn’t mind getting a few more easels.”
“Missy, you can use this room as long as you like, it will now be known as the art studio,” Gran said. “Just be prepared for my friends to want to get a look at your work every Tuesday when they visit for my garden parties. And sometimes on Fridays.”
“Deal. As long as you promise not to be too proud if you’re not feeling well, or you need help with something?”
That was when he thought his gran was going to balk, but then she surprised him.
“If I need anything, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
They shook hands on it and his gran pulled Missy in for a big hug, and Gran winked at him, as if they’d pulled one over on Missy to make her feel needed.
“Alright then, ladies, I have a baseball game to get to.”
He left them chattering away and wondered if they would actually really get along, but he hoped so.
At the ballfield he spotted Brooke the second he got out of his truck. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail that made him want to tug it before kissing her.
Damn, he needed to figure out how to spend time with her but not constantly obsess about wanting her. But watching her shift her weight from one foot to the other and how it made her hips sway, he couldn’t look away. She’d changed into a pair of fitness shorts and a tank top. The sides of the shorts’ material fluttered in the breeze, giving him a great view of her toned upper thigh. Just a few more inches and…
“Coach Dalton is here!” He heard the kids scream and cheer. Then Brooke turned to watch him walk the final few feet to stand next to her at the fence.
“Wow, you’re popular already,” she said.
“We’ll see how they feel after I put them through some paces.”
The wind blew a few loose strands of hair around her face, and she pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head to look at him.
“These kids aren’t ready for a Navy workout,” she said, and he noticed her eyes roving over his shoulders and arms.
He was carrying a bag full of a few things to use with the kids.
“Are you staying to watch? Or should I bring Max home later?”
“If you’re still offering, just bring him home after practice and I’ll have some dinner ready.”
“You don’t have to feed me, but I’m not going to turn you down. We’ll see you at seven thirty.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“No problem.”
The ballfield was noisy in the background with kids arriving with their parents and coaches yelling to rally their players on three different fields, but all the noise was drowned out by the unspoken words between them. She didn’t move her sunglasses back in place, and her hazel eyes glowed with something she wanted to say. He had to bite his tongue not to ask her what she was thinking. The Brooke he knew when he was a cocky young teenager was gone. This mature version was cautious and needed time to come to her own conclusion about what she wanted from him, and he just hoped it was more than just friendship. He’d replayed their kiss over and over in his mind and knew for a fact that there was no woman he would ever crave more than Brooke. She was starting to make him wonder what staying in Sandy Point could be like.