Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Summer took a deep breath and tried to look friendly, not scared. She was nervous, and she couldn’t explain exactly why. He was the one who had propositioned her. She was supposed to be giving a yes or no answer. It wasn’t supposed to be her hoping that he was going to take her.
But still, her hands trembled as she tried to unobtrusively wipe them on her jeans. She’d taken a little extra time with her hair, brushing it until it shone and then ruining the effect by putting it all up in a ponytail for work.
She didn’t know why either. It was silly. She just…wanted to look her best for this man.
“Hey,” she said as she stopped in front of him, offering him half a smile.
“Hey,” he said in return, seeming to be as tongue-tied as she was. Then, almost as though he shook himself, he jerked his head. “Are you off for the night? Want to walk for a bit?”
“Yes. I think the crazy crowds have dissipated some, and Sunny said that if she needed me, she’d text me.”
“All right. Then let’s head out. Did you get supper?” he asked, and she wasn’t sure if he was offering her supper or just wanted to know if he needed to wait while she got something.
“I had a croissant earlier and a cup of tea. I’m good.” She paused, wondering if maybe he was hungry. “Did you eat?”
“Yeah. I had my kids here earlier. We watched the parade. We grabbed a bite before that. Health food, that included funnel cakes and candied apples.”
“Mmm. Fair food. It’s so good.”
“I know, right?” he said, chuckling a little.
They walked along side by side until they reached the edge of town and the last bench.
The crowds were much thinner here. It was just people walking back and forth from where they parked at the swimming pool parking lot, which was closed for the season.
“Is it good to sit here?” he asked, indicating the bench.
“Sure,” she said, having used the walk to try to arrange her thoughts in order.
She’d written down a list of things that she thought they ought to have in an agreement between them, but she didn’t really want a lawyer.
She wanted just their signatures and their agreement.
Maybe that was a dangerous way to do it, but she didn’t like to have a whole bunch of legal mumbo jumbo between her and the people she dealt with.
She had to have the kids that she gave therapy to sign a waiver, even though the law in the state of Virginia said that anyone who was working around horses admitted that they were dangerous and they could get hurt, and they would not hold the barn owners liable.
Regardless, there still needed to be an agreement, but she kept it as simple as she could.
But she didn’t want to have legal stuff any more than they needed to.
“So, have you been okay the last two days?” he asked, not seeming to know where to start their conversation either. He rubbed his hands together, then clasped them and set them in his lap, before shifting a bit and stretching his legs out and pressing them.
She was sitting far enough away from him that he could put his hand up on the back bench and not touch her at all, and that seemed to be a comfortable position for him.
She wanted to squirm, but she made herself sit still, slightly tilted toward him with her hands clasped in her lap, too.
She would not give in to these nerves and whatever weird feeling she was having around him.
Which she decided had to be mostly gratitude, for the generous offer he had given her.
“I think good. I hope you have too?”
“I have.”
“Did the kids have fun watching the parade?”
“Larissa was disappointed, because she said she’d rather be in the parade riding a horse than watching the parade beside me.”
“Ouch,” she said, wrinkling up her nose, and he laughed.
“Yeah, I guess it was a bit of an insult, but it made me more hopeful that you would say yes to my proposition.”
“Well, yes. But I did think that we probably ought to discuss how it will look. I mean, I can’t just live there and not do anything. And you have rules for your house and that type of thing.”
“And you need some kind of assurance that I’m not going to rip the rug out from underneath you the second I feel like it since you’re trying to do your business out of my home.”
“Well, yeah, I guess I was hoping for some kind of lease agreement or something.”
“I wrote down a few ideas, but I didn’t go to a lawyer, because… That just seems like…I don’t know, not something I want to do. I guess I’d rather get taken advantage of than feel like I have to go and have a whole bunch of legal papers to sign.”
“Same,” she said, feeling really good about this all of a sudden. He felt the same as she did about lawyers, which was a little bit of distrust mixed with a lot of distaste. Not that lawyers couldn’t be good people, just, Christians weren’t supposed to need to have a lawyer between them.
“All right, sounds like we’re in agreement on that. Like I said, I did take the time to write a few things down.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
She laughed and reached into her back pocket and pulled out her folded piece of paper.
They held them up, looking at each other’s papers and then bursting into laughter.
“I’m not sure whether this is a good sign, that we think alike, or whether I should be scared,” he said.
“Same. This is just too uncanny. I was not expecting you to show up with a list.”
“I was not expecting that from you either.”
They exchanged papers and then sat for a bit while they read each other’s.
Her eyes skimmed over it, then she read it more slowly. Everything he had on his paper was to protect her. That they would have a signed lease agreement that she could use the barn, as long as she agreed that the barn could be used by his children when she was not giving therapy sessions.
That she would continue therapy for his children, and he would be paying for it.
She smiled at that. He had written that she would have the run of the house, except for the occupied bedrooms, and she could choose which ever unoccupied bedroom she wanted to stay in, unless she wanted to stay above the stable, but he had a note that there were a lot of things that needed to be fixed and he was hoping that she would choose to stay in the house because he didn’t want to put the money he was intending to use to purchase horses into fixing up the apartment.
She could get on board with that.
She read down through the rest of them and then looked up.
He had finished reading hers and was waiting.
“You first?” he said, lifting his brow like he was giving her the option. Which he was.
“All right. All these sound good to me. I’ll choose a bedroom, and then you don’t have to spend money on the apartment above the stable. I knew there were some things that needed to be fixed there.”
“I’m not sure how much I will get into doing it. I also saw some rodent droppings, and I heard some scratching in the walls. So I don’t think you want to be there until we do a thorough extermination.”
“You’re correct about that,” she said, smiling.
“Thought so,” he said.
“All right, this lease agreement sounds good to me. Should it be six months or a year?”
“We can make it whatever you want. I have zero intention of standing in your way over that. Really, the only plans I had for the barn were for the kids to have horses there, and I was thinking that I might just build a small barn behind the house and the kids can keep their horses there, and that way you would have the entire barn in the front for yourself.”
“I hate to see you do that, but that would be really nice, because I hate the idea that the kids couldn’t use the stable while I’m there.
Probably the only thing that I would want for them to do would be to not bother my clients and me wherever we are.
For example, if we are in the ring riding, they could be in the stable.
That’s not a problem. I just need to be able to have uninterrupted time with my clients,” she said, lifting her hands and spreading them out, hoping that he understood what she was saying.
“I totally get that. That’s the reason I don’t often take my kids to work with me.
I can’t be dealing with my children while I’m trying to deal with a client.
They deserve my undivided attention, because they’re putting money down in my business, and I should be making sure that they get the service they’re expecting.
But if my kids are there, I want to be giving them attention. ”
“From one business owner to another, thank you for understanding.”
He nodded his head. “The kids are old enough that they understand. If they were three or four or something like that, it’d be tough to tell them and expect them to listen, but Robert, even though he’s the youngest, understands that he has to wait until the adults are done speaking until he can get the attention of whoever it is that he needs to talk to. ”
“I agree. Your children are very well behaved, and I’ve never had any trouble with them at all. I really wasn’t worried about that, but I appreciate you being considerate that way.”
“No problem. That’s the whole point. I don’t want to see you lose your business and your clients and everything that you’ve built, and that’s pretty much where my thoughts were going when I wrote out the list.”
“Everything on here is for me. That’s…more than I expected.”
“I wanted to be fair.”
“There are some things we have to do to be fair for you.”
“Well, you have those all down here. You’ll buy the groceries every week. And do all the cooking. Are you sure that’s not too much?”
“I assumed that Larissa would help me. She said that her grandma taught her to bake and she enjoyed it. But she and I can talk about that, and maybe we can come to an agreement and just let you know, so if there’s no supper on the table and it’s Larissa’s turn to make it, then you will not be mad at me. ”