At the end of her marriage, she’d felt undesirable and lacking in some way.
Mason made her feel wanted.
It made her stand a little straighter and feel lighter and giddy all at the same time.
She’d been unsure about coming home, thinking she didn’t have anything besides family to come back to that would really make a difference in her life.
But Mason proved her wrong.
She’d wanted to find a way to get by. Mason gave her hope for something more.
Chapter Thirteen
Mason didn’t know what to call the feelings running through him. An hour into the football game and he simply felt . . . great. Happy.
Sierra, looking beautiful in her dark pink top, long dark hair falling past her shoulders, stood in his kitchen, pulling a baking tray from the oven. She set it on top of the stove, then looked through the cupboards until she found the plates. She didn’t hesitate to make herself at home in the kitchen he barely used.
The boys sprawled on the sofa. Danny watched the game, cheering with him when their team scored. Oliver watched Tom and Jerry on his tablet, giggling every so often and completely engrossed in the classic cartoon.
This is what this house needed. A family.
This is what his life needed.
He’d wanted this for a long time.
Once, he’d thought he’d get a chance to have it with Sierra.
If this was the start of his second chance, he’d make it count. This time, he wouldn’t let her walk away without a fight.
Only one thing could screw it all up: the secret he’d kept since her stepfather’s funeral.
His clients were falsely accused of wrongdoings all the time. Divorces could cause hurt feelings, and the parties sometimes lashed out, making things worse.
He knew better than to present something without evidence to back it up.
If he said something and it turned out to be wrong, he risked her being angry at him for telling tales. She’d question his motives.
“Mason. You okay?”
He met Sierra’s inquisitive gaze and smiled just because having her here made him so damn happy. “Yeah. Fine. Just got lost in thought.” He tipped his chin toward the plate of pigs in a blanket. “Those look really good.”
Danny took one and tried to see the TV around her hips. “Mom, move.”
“Please,” she prompted him.
Danny fell back into the cushions. “Please.” He leaned over to check out the play on TV and groaned over the incomplete pass.
Sierra set the plate on the coffee table. “I’ll get the rest of the goodies.”
Mason rose and stood next to her. Close enough to smell her sweet floral scent. He’d missed that about her. She always smelled so good. “Let me help.” He followed her into the kitchen, pulled the bottles of root beer and vanilla cream soda from the fridge and out of their cardboard holders, and placed them in the metal bucket he’d left on the counter.
“I love cream soda.”
“I remember.” He tried to play it off like it didn’t mean anything, but Sierra stared at him, getting that he’d stored away a lot of memories and tidbits about her. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she made him pay attention.
Maybe if he’d paid attention to his fiancée the way he did when Sierra was around, he’d have made it down the aisle and filled this house with his own family.
“I’m sorry, Mason.”
At first he didn’t know what she meant, then he caught the remorseful look in her eyes. “We don’t need to do this, Sierra.”
“I do. I’ve held on to it all this time. I’ve wanted to say something to you for so long, I just didn’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to apologize for being in love with David and wanting to be with him.” It sucked. But Mason couldn’t change the way she felt. Back then, he’d hoped maybe there was something deeper than friendship between them. Maybe there was, but she’d still picked David. Admittedly, he’d known she would. She and David had been seeing each other for a good long time. So Mason had swallowed his feelings and everything he’d wanted to say to her until it was too late and what little he had said hadn’t been enough for her to really believe he wanted her to take a chance on him.
She shook her head. “I apologize for . . . whatever that weird scene was between us. I wanted to say something, then I didn’t, and you didn’t know what to say to me acting so weird, and then every time we saw each other afterward it was . . . strange. I made it weird.”
“Look, I’m not going to deny that I hoped maybe you thought David wasn’t the man for you.”
“Wait. What?”
Mason thought she knew, but it looked like he’d been wrong. Great. What did that mean for them now? He didn’t know, but he continued anyway because he’d been caught. “You and I were always friends, but I hoped we could be something more. David was my friend, but I still hoped you and I . . . Well, I shouldn’t have made things more awkward when you were with him.”
Her head tilted to the side and her gorgeous dark hair draped down her arm. “More awkward?”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to bring this up. “David knew I had a thing for you.”
“He did? You did?”
Her disbelief made him chuckle without any real humor. He laid it on the line. “It’s more accurate to say I do.”
Her brown eyes filled with surprise.
“Come on, Sierra, I might have been trying to hide it when you were with David, but I think I’ve made it clear now that I’m interested in seeing if there’s something between us.”
“I’m . . . not good at this. It’s been a long time since I dated anyone. You and I have history. We’re friends.”
“And I hope that never changes, but I want more.” He took a step closer, drawn by her wide eyes, so filled with disbelief, wonder, and hope, he couldn’t stop himself from falling into them.
If they were going to rehash the past, he was going all in. “David knew you and I were friends when he started dating you. Let’s just say David and I had a friendly rivalry, always trying to best the other. He got the girl I wanted.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Are you saying he was playing some one-up game with you?” Anger and resentment flashed in her eyes.
He wanted to dispel that immediately. “I think he saw what I saw in you and in no time he fell in love with you. You’re kind and generous and caring. He was drawn to you just like I was. I was caught up in building my career and I let my personal life slip. I let you get away. I didn’t go after what I really wanted and David did.”
She raked her fingers through the side of her hair. “I’m having a hard time resolving the past and right now. I wished I’d known how you really felt.”
He gave her the God’s honest truth. “I want you. That’s how I feel right now. That’s what I should have said to you back then. Not that it would have made a difference. You didn’t feel the same.”
Her gaze dropped to the floor and she slid the tip of her shoe along the hardwood. “Actually, I did feel something for you back then.”
Blown away, he didn’t know what to say. “Seriously?”