“Let me grab you a drink,” he said. “Would you like wine, beer, soda?”
“Water would be great,” she told him.
He headed to the kitchen for a glass of water for her. When he came back, she was eating her dinner with gusto.
“You’re an amazing cook,” she told him.
“Thanks,” he said. “My mother-in-law taught me a lot and I really enjoy it.”
“Does Carol come by a lot?” Ava asked.
“She sure does,” Dax said. “If she weren’t still working, I think she’d be here every day.”
“Wow, it would be great if she could watch the twins for you,” Ava said, looking up from her plate.
“I don’t really want that,” Dax admitted. “I like being home with them. Actually, that’s part of the reason I’m glad you’re here.”
“You want to stay home with them?” Ava asked.
She looked curious - no judgement.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d love to stay with them until they start pre-school at least. I feel bad that their mom isn’t around. I want to be here for them as much as possible.”
“How many more years is that?” Ava asked.
He could hear the note of professional interest in her voice.
“Well, it’s another two years,” he said.
“And I remember you had enough savings for one year, but we’re beyond that now,” Ava said with a frown.
“Yes, fourteen months,” he told her. “But I’ve been careful. We’re still okay. But not for much longer.”
“I see,” Ava said.
“There are some assets I haven’t touched,” he told her. “Some of it is for the kids’ educations, and of course I won’t touch that. But I’ve got some other savings.”
“Let’s take a look,” Ava said, hopping up from the table and heading to the kitchen with her plate.
“No, no, please eat your dinner,” he said. “I’m so sorry to bring it up now. We have plenty of time.”
“The kids are asleep, right?” Ava asked. “Isn’t this the perfect time? Besides, you just gave me a finance problem. I’m going to go bananas if I can’t try and solve it. I might not be able to run, but my brain is still fit, and aching for a workout.”
She was telling the truth - his wolf could sense it.
“Okay, sure,” he told her. “What do you need from me?”
“We’re going to take your financial temperature. So, we’ll need all your accounts,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Checking, savings, retirement, etc. And a list of all your assets too, anything you own besides money. And of course we’ll need a rundown of your debt as well as your regular expenses.”
“Okay, I’m on it,” he said, hopping up to grab his laptop.
Her excitement was contagious. It was funny to feel revved up about taking his financial temperature.
Clearly Ava was truly gifted at what she did, and passionate about it, too.
When he returned, she had her own laptop out and was opening a spreadsheet.
“I’m going to enter all your info into this,” she told him. “It will give us a baseline of your net worth and your financial health.”
He sat down beside her and peered over her shoulder. There were dozens of color-coded columns.
“Where do we start?” he asked.
“Let’s start with retirement funds,” she said. “Not that I think you should raid them. I just want to see where you stand.”
He turned back to his own laptop and began opening tabs.
He’d anticipated this conversation and had already bookmarked most of the pertinent sites where he could pull the info she needed.
He read off numbers and she typed, then asked for the next category of items.
After they had looked at the retirement accounts and the kids’ college funds, he offered to make her a cup of tea and she agreed.
As he watched the kettle, he couldn’t help peeking back at Ava.
She had pulled her hair into a ponytail. Her glasses slid low on her nose. She leaned close to the screen, her fingers tapping away on the keyboard with a merry confidence.
Something about the sound and sight made him feel safe, in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.
He carried their mugs in and she smiled up at him.
Her face was illuminated by the soft light of the screen and there was something beautiful about her now that she was doing something she was passionate about. The exhaustion was gone from her demeanor, replaced by the spark of liveliness he’d caught a glimpse of earlier when she’d been reading to the twins.
“Find anything good?” he asked her over the lump that was suddenly in his throat.
“Oh, we’re just doing recon now,” she told him. “I’ll be filling in blanks for a while before we start coming up with answers. Thanks for the tea.”
He sat beside her again, noticing the way she cradled the mug almost reverently, warming herself with it as she gazed at the screen.
It had been a long time since he’d been this intimate with another person. Not that sitting at this table was particularly intimate, but he was sharing his finances with her, arguably one of the most private things a person could share.
And she was baring her passion to him. Weaving numbers onto the brightly colored spreadsheet. She was showing him what mattered to her.
“Oh, look at that,” she exclaimed, leaning toward the screen suddenly. “Crap.”
She had spilled her hot tea onto her blouse.
Time seemed to stand still for a moment as he took in the sight of the soft fabric, drenched and clinging to her small breasts.
The wolf nosed at his bounds and Dax felt an unbidden surge of lust.
“Let me get you a towel,” he choked out, launching himself out of his chair, which skidded along the floor with a screech of complaint.
He jogged into the kitchen and pulled towels out of the drawer as he tried to talk himself off a ledge.
You’re only human. It’s a natural instinct, it doesn’t mean anything…
But Dax hadn’t really been aroused in a year, other than his depressingly obligatory forays into porn. He certainly hadn’t been aroused unintentionally. And definitely not by a real-life woman. Though plenty had launched themselves at him shamefully quickly after he lost his wife.
But the pull he felt to Ava was as clear and undeniable as it was uninvited.
That’s Jill’s best friend. She’s here to help you. Don’t be an animal, his nice guy side admonished him, even as some secret dark voice in the back of his head reminded him he was still young and rejoiced that there was still a spark of life in his libido.
He ran back out with the towels and thrust them at her, not trusting himself to help her or even speak.
“Thanks so much,” she said. “I’m such an idiot, I got so excited about those stock options you have from your old corporate job that I forgot I had tea in my hands.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said quickly. “Listen, I have to be up early with the twins.”
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she told him, looking horrified. “Is it okay for me to keep working on this? It looks like you’ve got some tabs open with your info.”