“Thank you.”
He paid for the groceries and carried the bags out to the truck, stashing them in the backseat while she put the baby in the car seat.
She cast a glance his way, her gaze colliding with his for a brief, charged moment before she looked away.
“You okay?”
“I made a huge mistake by not better planning this trip.” She sounded so sad and down on herself that Lucas wanted to object. “I just hope that this isn’t going to be another huge mistake.”
“I swear to God on the lives of everyone I love—and I love a lot of people—you have nothing at all to fear from me.”
“That’s what your mother said, too.”
“She’s somewhat partial to me and my siblings, but I’ve never once known her to lie about anything. In fact, that was the one thing we got in really big trouble for when we were kids. My sister Charley was a world-class liar, and she got in so much trouble.”
“How about you? Did you get into trouble for lying?”
“Nah, with me, it was more about broken windows, fender benders with my father’s cars, music that was always too loud and wrestling. I was—and am—a big fan of wrestling with my brothers, sometimes in places such as my mother’s dining room where her grandmother’s china is kept. That was a bit of a problem for her, to say the least.”
“The woman must be a saint.”
“That word is often used to describe her.”
“How many brothers?”
“Six. One of them is my identical twin.”
“Oh wow. That’s so cool!”
“Get in the truck and I’ll tell you all about it.” Most of the time, people expressed dismay that there were two of them, but Danielle just seemed intrigued. That was because she didn’t know that he and his twin were largely considered buffoons by everyone who knew them. She didn’t know them, so here was a great opportunity to test out his new plan to act like a grown-up.
As they left the parking lot of the convenience store and headed for Craig’s house, it occurred to Lucas that he hadn’t thought of Amanda, Landon or the mess he’d left behind at home in more than an hour.
Chapter 4
“Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.”
—Henry David Thoreau
Dani hoped she wasn’t making yet another huge mistake by letting Lucas help her, but what was she supposed to do? Both he and his mother had confirmed that lodging in Stowe would be hard to come by this time of year, and he’d said the place he was staying had plenty of room.
How could she have been so stupid as to not have anticipated ski season in Vermont? She’d been so consumed with leaving Kentucky, hadn’t looked past the logistics of getting to her destination. The trip had taken twice as long as it normally would have, due to having to stop to feed and change Savannah every couple of hours.
Yesterday, she had gotten tired of being trapped in her seat and had begun to scream her head off until Dani had had no choice but to quit early and find a hotel in Pennsylvania. Today had been another long day, and when the car had spun off the road and landed in a ditch, Dani had been immediately convinced she and her daughter were both going to die out there alone in the cold.
Until Lucas Abbott had come along to save the day. After she’d stopped being terrified of the strange man knocking on her window, she’d immediately noticed he was handsome like a movie star. And when he’d lifted her out of the car, she’d discovered he had muscles on top of muscles.
Not that she was in any way interested in him as a man. Not even kind of. However, it was good to know that she was still able to notice a handsome man when she saw one. And Lucas Abbott was the most handsome of handsome men. He smelled really good, too. Like cold winter air, evergreen and woodsmoke, which was one of her favorite scents.
Why she was allowing herself to dissect what he smelled like, she couldn’t say. It was better if she didn’t let her thoughts go beyond a bed and a roof over her head and Savannah’s for the evening. Tomorrow, she would find a place for them to stay before her interviews. She’d arranged the interviews from the hotel room in Pennsylvania the night before and had told the managers that she would need to bring her daughter with her until she found qualified childcare. They had been understanding, but she hoped that being a single mom to a four-month-old wouldn’t hurt her chances of securing employment.
Thanks to the life insurance her late fiancé’s work had provided, her financial situation wasn’t dire. Not yet anyway, but she needed a job and was counting on finding something that would offer long-term security for her and her child. It still tugged at her heart, all these months later, that Jack had made her the beneficiary of his life insurance policy and was taking care of her even after he was gone.
When they got to the house where they’d be staying, she’d ask Lucas if she could use the phone so she could call to let her best friend at home know she’d made it to Vermont. Leslie knew better than anyone how badly Dani needed to get away from the painful memories she’d left behind in Kentucky.
It was sobering to realize how totally screwed she would’ve been if Lucas hadn’t come along to help her.
“I really appreciate you stopping to help us,” she said, breaking another long silence.
“Of course I stopped to help you.”
“You say that like everyone would do what you did.”
“I’d like to think anyone would.”
“And yet we both know better, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess. Most of the people I know would’ve stopped to help someone in need.”
“You must know all the nice people.”
“The people you know aren’t nice?”
“They are.” The people in her world were almost too nice, and that had been her problem at home. It would be so easy, she realized, to pour her heart out to this sweet guy who’d been a lifesaver. But she’d left all that crap at home when she set out to reinvent herself in a place where some of her happiest memories had been made. The last thing she wanted to do now was revisit the many reasons she’d had for pulling up stakes and changing her life—and Savannah’s.
Her mother would never forgive her for moving her only child and grandchild so far away, but Dani couldn’t breathe with her parents wanting to fix everything for her. They couldn’t fix the unfixable. Only she could, thus the decision to move far enough away that her parents wouldn’t be able to pop by without notice or interfere with every aspect of her life and the baby’s.
She was thankful for everything they’d done for her and Savannah, but she’d gotten to the point where she wasn’t doing any thinking for herself, which had worked out well for a while, but that couldn’t go on forever. Dani only wished she’d left things on a better note with her parents, who were furious with her after reading the note she’d left for them. She’d gotten an earful when they called her.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly, trying to clear her mind of things that were better left in the past. Imagining what her parents would have to say about her riding in a truck with a man who’d been a stranger an hour ago had her once again questioning her own judgment. If she was wrong about Lucas Abbott, she would never trust herself again.