“So essentially, you were just keeping her a secret from me.”
“Dillon, she’s not a secret. I just—”
“You just didn’t trust me enough to tell me about her. You didn’t trust me enough to believe I’d understand what had happened.”
Her gaze didn’t evade his. “It’s not as if we know each other.”
Although he was physically attracted to Erika, there were so many other qualities he liked about her, too. Her blunt honesty was one of them. So he was just as bluntly honest. “Do you want to get to know me?”
It wasn’t difficult for Dillon to see the turmoil Erika was in and he guessed one of the reasons why. “This isn’t a boss-secretary situation, you know. You’re a free agent. You’re coordinating Frontier Days. You’re just helping me out with my schedule and phone calls while I’m here.”
Her brown eyes conveyed her concern. “You can still turn in a report about me after you leave that can affect my future.”
Keeping his gaze on hers, he assured her, “I could write that report now and be done with it. It took me about an hour on our first day together to learn you’re organized, you practically have a photographic memory and you’re a perfectionist. What more could any employer want?”
“So you’d write a letter of recommendation now and file it away until you leave?”
“Yes. If doing that would mean you’ll have dinner again with me tonight.”
“I can’t.”
Dillon kept his expression neutral, denying how disappointed he felt. Maybe he was all wrong about the two of them connecting. Maybe he was the only one aware of the electricity in the air when they were sitting close together like this. But then he leaned back in his chair, leveled his gaze on her and knew he wasn’t wrong. Still, this was her call. He wasn’t going to pressure her.
“Okay,” he said, pushing his chair back. “That’s settled then.”
But before he could pick up his cup of coffee, her hand clasped his forearm. The electricity was there all right—sparking, buzzing, tingling.
“I have a commitment tonight,” she explained. “It’s a potluck dinner with some of the women in my neighborhood. But …” She gave him an intriguing half smile.
“But?” he asked, denying the fact his heart rate had sped up.
“But you’re welcome to come along.”
“Won’t I be the only guy?”
“Is that too much of a challenge?” she teased.
He knew she wasn’t teasing entirely. It didn’t take a genius to realize this was probably some kind of test. She was throwing down a gauntlet. He’d spent much of his life picking up gauntlets. The future was always more exciting when he did.
“A potluck dinner sounds great. What can I bring?”
That evening Dillon’s rented luxury sedan followed Erika’s small Ford to an older section of Thunder Canyon, possibly an original section. The row houses—a mixture of brick, clapboard and stone—jutted in and out along tree-lined streets.
Erika pulled up in front of a narrow redbrick house that rose two stories. A windowsill box of colorful mums decorated the front window. The house next door, in gray brick instead of red, had a similar box at its front window.
As Erika stepped out of her car, Dillon joined her. She said, “I have to pop inside my place first to get my contribution to the supper, then we’ll go over and gather up Emilia.”
“Your mom lives next door?”
“Yes. It’s more than convenient. It’s wonderful really.
For a while I lived there with her and she wanted me to stay. But I needed a place of my own. This one went up for sale right when I was thinking of buying a house. I knew it was fate. It took every penny of my savings for a down payment, but I wanted something I could invest in and have for a lifetime, maybe even leave to Emilia someday. It’s not very big, but it’s perfect for the two of us.”
She walked up the two front steps and unlocked the door.
Leaning against the wrought-iron railing, Dillon asked, “Mind if I come inside?”
“Not at all.”
When Dillon walked in, he wasn’t sure what to expect. But right away he could see this little gem of a house was something special.
She saw him looking down at the gleaming wood floors and said, “They just needed to be refinished. I did it myself with a little help from our neighbor.”
“You do home improvement?” he asked with a smile.
“I watch the Home and Garden channel when I have a chance. I’ve learned a lot. I also go to the local hardware store and the clerks there fill me in on what I don’t know.”
The living room was to the right, off the small foyer. A braided rug in blue and green and yellow was surrounded by a comfortable-looking sofa and an easy chair in the same colors. Green throw pillows fringed in yellow picked up the colors in the curtains. An entire wall was devoted to framed photos of Emilia. Dillon felt the familiar lance to his heart as he remembered the photographs of Toby that had decorated his and Megan’s living room.
Shaking off the shadows, he noticed a red washbasket full of toys that sat in one corner accompanied by a milk crate that held books. Passing the stairway to the second floor, they headed through the dining room into the kitchen.
“If you haven’t guessed, I like blue and yellow a lot,” she said with a wide smile.
Dillon glanced around the room at the yellow cupboards with blue accents, a round table with a high chair positioned at it and two shelves of cookbooks in a corner hutch. A circular, stained-glass window let in jewel-colored light even as the sun descended. The overall effect of the first floor was charming, and he could imagine Erika happily running after Emilia, bringing laughter into all of the rooms.
“What?” she asked him when she caught him staring at her.
“You’re full of surprises. I never thought you’d dabble in paint or hardware.”
“I’m a single mom, Dillon. I do what I have to do.”
Yes, she was a single mom. He remembered being a dad. It sounded as if she’d always put her daughter first. He hadn’t put his son first. Not until it was too late.
She unplugged the Crock-Pot on her counter. “We’ll just put this in the backseat of the car. It will stay hot.”
Dillon crossed to the kitchen counter to help her. Standing beside her, looking down on her, smelling that wonderful scent from her hair, he wanted to kiss her more badly than he wanted to do anything else. She was looking up at him as if she might want it, too. But he wouldn’t rush anything with Erika. In fact, he shouldn’t even think about starting anything with Erika. She had a child. They lived in two different states.
She has a child, he repeated to himself.
“I’ll carry it,” he said, his voice a bit husky.
“It’s beef stew,” she said. “Most of us try to stretch out paychecks so you’ll see lots of casseroles, I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She quirked up her brows. “Just how often do you eat casseroles?”
He finally had to admit, “Not often. But that’s not because I don’t like them. I just usually grab some takeout supper, or eat at a restaurant.”
“No cooking skills?” she joked.
“No time to use cooking skills. That probably sounds like