“Are you sure you want to stick around and help me pack up books? You must have better things to do.”
He held her gaze. “There’s no place else I’d rather be.”
The honesty in his eyes tugged at something deep inside her. She told herself not to believe it, that he was probably used to charming women’s panties off and most likely saw her as a challenge. But it felt so real, she was having trouble convincing herself otherwise.
“Let’s get started,” he suggested. “I’ll answer your questions about my fan club and anything else you want to know, and you can tell me all about yourself.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but there’s not much to tell.”
“How about you let me be the judge of that? Come on, sexy reader.” He rubbed his hands together, looking at the boxes. “Where do we start?”
She explained the process, expecting him to back out, but he remained on the couch, sitting beside her as she wrote notes to the members, inserted a bookmark, and wrapped each book in tissue paper, and then Dash put them in envelopes with the appropriate labels.
“So, what do you want to know?” He affixed a label. “How the walking group came about?”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t really want to hear about women chasing after you. I’ve seen enough of it.”
“It’s not like that.”
She gave him a deadpan look.
“Okay, maybe it is like that for some women, but that has nothing to do with me. I’m not out there looking for dates.” He leaned against her side with that charming smile. “I’m here looking at you, and trust me, sweetheart, there’s no better view.”
“I think you have those cheesy lines down pat.” She picked up another note card, shaking her head.
“Mental note: Sexy reader is not into cheese. How about whipped cream?” He arched a brow.
She tried to hide how much she liked his ridiculous lines despite their cheesiness.
“I got to hang out with your mom again this morning.”
“My sister told me. It’s a little weird that she went walking with you. She rides horses and trains service dogs. She never goes out specifically to exercise like that.”
“It was good for her to get out and talk with the other ladies. She had fun. We all did, and we didn’t just walk.”
She looked up from the note she was writing. “I’m afraid to ask what else you did.”
“You really do have a dirty mind.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Sure you did, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.” He chuckled. “We did calisthenics. Vertical, not horizontal.”
Ohmygosh.
“Talk about hysterical. The way those ladies bantered, I felt like I was in a frat house. And at the café, when I suggested that Nana and her friends join me tomorrow at the park, I asked them what they wanted to gain from exercising, and Nana said ‘More stamina in the bedroom.’ I’m all for a healthy sexual appetite, but I didn’t need to know that.”
“Nana is shameless.” Kind of like you.
“I really like her. She told me about how she celebrates every little thing and that she’s hoping to get her granddaughter Sophie and Sophie’s husband, Brett, to move back to the area full time so she can see more of her great-granddaughter.” Sophie was Lindsay’s sister. She and Brett split their time between New York and Oak Falls. “I know Brett Bad and his family, by the way.”
“You do?” She wasn’t surprised that Nana had overshared, but she was surprised that he knew Sophie and Brett.
“My agent, Tiffany, is married to Brett’s brother Dylan. I’m going to see them in a few weeks at a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House that the Bad family hosts. My buddies and I have been going for the past couple of years. We give to the cause, of course, but we also sign memorabilia for them to auction off. Every little bit helps.”
She liked knowing that about him. “It broke my heart when Brett told us they’d lost their sister to leukemia when she was young.”
“It’s very sad. They honor her at the fundraiser. Speaking of fundraising, your mom said it costs thousands of dollars to train service dogs. I didn’t realize that the families who get the dogs do fundraising to cover those costs.”
“It’s always been part of her program, although she’s a softie. She’s given dogs to people who didn’t raise enough money to cover the training.”
“She didn’t tell me that. She’s pretty amazing. I like getting to know her. She was careful not to talk about you in the group, but she did admit she’s thrilled that Grace moved back home. She showed me a picture of Pepper, too. She looks more like you than Sable. She said she wants more grandbabies, and she’s worried that your sister Pepper will miss out on the best things in life because she works so hard.”
“She told you that about Pepper?”
“Yeah. You’d be surprised how people open up when they exercise with a group. It’s like therapy. That’s how I used to get my brothers and sisters to open up when we were kids.”
“Really? How many siblings do you have?”
“Two brothers and two sisters. Breakfast with your family reminded me of being with them. We’re always giving each other a hard time, but they’re my heart and soul. I practically raised them after our father left.”
His feelings for his siblings warmed her, but she sensed uneasiness when he mentioned his father. “Your parents are divorced?”
He nodded. “My father worked for my grandfather’s real estate development company and had an affair with his secretary. When my grandfather found out, he fired him. My father took off with her shortly after. They moved to Florida, and I think a few years later they moved out West. We never hear from him.”
“He just left and never looked back? That’s awful.”
He wrung his hands together. “He got in touch once, five or six years ago. He got into some shady business deals and needed money to get himself out of a hole.”
“And he had the nerve to come to you? That’s such a callous, hurtful thing to do. What did you do?”
“It did hurt, a lot more than I’d expected. For years I’d had a running dialogue in my head about what I’d say if I ever saw him again. I thought I’d make him apologize to my mom and my siblings, and I’d give him a piece of my mind. But when he was standing in front of me, he didn’t even look like the same guy who had left us. I remembered him as confident and powerful, always dressed in a suit, reminding us how important it was to work hard and be a man. But he just looked diminished. I don’t know if it was because I’d lost all respect for him or because life had beaten him down.”
“It was probably both.”
“Probably. Anyway, I didn’t say the things I had planned. I didn’t want anything from him other than his word that he’d never contact me or anyone in our family again. I gave him the money he asked for and said that was it. He wasn’t getting another penny. It’s shameful to have to pay off your father, but better me than anyone else.”
Her heart broke for him. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how awful that must have been. Not just the money part, but his leaving in the first place.”