She snorted. “Maybe that’s why my parents hated you so much.”
“They hated me because they knew I was trying to get into their daughter’s pants,” he said with a grin.
“Well, you did that,” she said, “but why is it everyone believes that I was an innocent party?”
“Because fathers look upon their daughters as being young and innocent. Those fathers know perfectly well that, when they were young themselves, they did things that they weren’t very happy with.”
She sat back and said, “I was supposed to have a nice afternoon off because the other clinic still isn’t back up and running,” she said, “and instead I’m emotionally exhausted now.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry. It’s not how I intended the afternoon to go.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said. “I’m the one who stopped to see if you were here.”
“And I like that,” he said. “I really do.”
She smiled. “And will you come for dinner tonight instead?”
“I thought it was planned for tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, but I’m feeling a little bit uneasy about this whole thing,” she said. “I’d feel better if you came tonight too.”
“Then I’ll come,” he said immediately. “Do you want to tell Jeremy ahead of time, so it’s not a shock?”
“I suppose I should.” She pulled out her phone, looked down, and said, “There’s a couple of messages from him anyway.”
She scrolled through them, seeing the usual request to stay at Frank’s. She looked up at Kurt and said, “He’s asking to stay at Frank’s tonight.”
“Overnight?” he asked.
“It’s often what happens.”
“You like Frank?”
“He’s a good kid,” she said, “and, in this world, when I see other punks—like the ones who were just here threatening me—I realize just how good both my teenage son and Frank are.”
“So tell him that I’ll be there for dinner. He can come join us or not, but otherwise we’ll meet tomorrow for the burgers.”
She thought about that and then nodded and quickly sent a text. When her son responded with Why is he coming tonight? she didn’t know what to say. She looked again at Kurt. “He’s asking why you are coming tonight.”
“Because we want to be together,” he said quietly.
She stared at him and could feel some of the tension inside her creeping back in again. “I’ve haven’t really dated since I had him,” she said. As Kurt’s gaze widened, she nodded. “He was the most important thing in my life. I was in school, and I didn’t have a chance to go out very much. I tried a couple dates when he was younger, and that just didn’t work out very well, so I avoided the whole dating game.”
“So now you don’t know what he’ll think of it?”
“I guess,” she said, slowly working her way through it. “Maybe I’m embarrassed. Maybe I’m just unsure.”
“Well,” he said quietly, “you’ll have to make the call on this one.” Kurt watched her curiously to see how she would handle this.
She let out her breath slowly. Then raised her phone and texted her son. He’s coming for dinner because we want to spend time together. You too. Bring Frank. When no answer came immediately from her son, she said with a wince, “So that may have just killed that conversation.”
“What did you say?”
After she told him, she watched the slowest smile grow on his face. “It’ll be a lot of adjustment to even have you around for a little while.”
“I know,” he said. “I was thinking that same thing, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve to spend time alone with each other as well as a family.”
The waitress returned with Kurt’s coffee and pie. He nodded his thank-you to her as she left them alone again.
“Is this really what we want?” she asked, narrowing her gaze at him. “We can’t go back in time.”
“Good,” he said. “Who the hell wants to. I’m very different. You’re very different, and there’s absolutely no reason at all that we should have to do that.”
“Meaning?”
“I like who you are today too,” he said honestly, “and I really would like to spend some time with you.”
“But, once again, you’re not staying around, are you?” she asked quietly. “So, once again, this is short-term, just to connect for a little while, and then you’ll be gone.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “I haven’t made any plans for my future yet, now that I’m out of the navy and mostly rehabbed from my accident. So I don’t have a job or a career to offer you,” he said.
Her eyebrows rose. “I don’t remember saying I needed that offered.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I can just see your parents in the background, frowning with displeasure, because I’m still not a good prospect.”
“Sure,” she said with a negligent shrug. “But they’ve been doing that all your life, whether you knew it or not.”
He burst out laughing.
She glanced to one of the big windows in the coffee shop and frowned. “But our priority right now needs to be the dog.”
He looked outside and frowned. “What is it?”
“I think I saw somebody just go into the bushes where she is,” she said.
He scanned the area. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Don’t worry about me.” She shook her head and said, “Go. I’ll head home. I might have a nap. I’m feeling just that tired right now.”
“Do you still want me to come for dinner?”
She checked her watch and said, “How about at six?”
“I’ll be there,” he said. He smiled and added, “I’ll go rescue another damsel right now.”
And he disappeared.
Kurt strode out of the restaurant and picked up his pace to a light jog, heading in the same direction as he’d seen a man now entering the woods. It could be some guy who just needed to take a leak, but it also happened to be the same area where Sabine was.
Besides, Kurt wasn’t at all sure that these five kids, the young gang members, didn’t have somebody older behind them. And, if somebody in any gang had something against Sabine, it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to Kurt. He’d take them down, save the War Dog from further abuse.
As he headed to the shrubbery, he didn’t dare look behind him, but he was pretty sure that Laurie Ann stood at the entranceway to the coffee shop, watching him. He stepped into the woods and stopped in silence. He listened, quietly hearing the crunch off to the side—a stealthiness to it that made him frown.
He hoped that Sabine had smarts enough to separate enemy from friend. But then he remembered some of the training that she had had back when she was in the War Dogs program, how she had been trained to sniff out the enemy versus her own trainers. The trouble was, did she understand who was who at this point in her civilian life? She’d been on her own for a long time, and just enough assholes were out here to confuse her.