“I know,” she answered. “You have a loft upstairs. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Her gaze traveled past him to where Tracie had disappeared. “I was heading to the bakery and your door was open...”
“You’re not interrupting,” he said quickly, coming to stand behind his nephew. “Tracie works here, and she stopped by after her run. She had a date last night.” She bit down on her lip and he quickly added, “With someone else. Not me. We’re not...” He raked a hand through his hair. “She’s a friend. The guy she went out with is a doctor. A surgeon. He—”
“Uncle David, why are you talking so fast?” He glanced down to find Rhett staring up at him, then raised his gaze to Erin’s. He was babbling. He’d never babbled in his entire life.
She flashed a shy smile. “I’m going to grab breakfast at Life Is Sweet, then head over to the community center to set up a few things for tomorrow. I thought Rhett might like to help me if it’s okay with you.”
He felt Rhett fidget against his legs. “What do you think, buddy? We can head to the river a little later if you want to help Ms. MacDonald.”
“I might mess things up,” Rhett said, kicking the toe of one ratty sneaker against the scuffed wood floor. “I have to stay out of the way around here.”
David sighed. He’d said those words this morning—pre-coffee—when he’d set up Rhett with the iPad.
“You won’t mess up anything.” Erin crouched down in front of the boy. “In fact, some of the supplies I’m using are way back in a closet and I need someone small enough to crawl in and push them out to me.”
Rhett nodded. “I can do that.”
“Then we’ve got a deal.” She straightened, and David expected to see censure in her big eyes, but instead they were gentle in a way that made his heart hammer in his chest.
“Can I go in my pj’s?” Rhett asked.
Erin smiled. “This might be a good time to get dressed for the day. Can you do that?”
“Me and Ruffie have a bedroom upstairs.” He pointed to the raggedy blue dog sitting on the booth where he’d been playing a video game. “He gets nervous when we’re not together.”
“He’s welcome to come with us,” Erin offered.
“Yeah,” Rhett agreed. “He’d like that.”
He ran to the table, grabbed the dog and then headed for the hallway leading to the staircase that accessed the upper floor. There was also an entrance off the street, but David used the one that led directly into his office in the back of the bar when things weren’t busy.
“I suck at this,” he mumbled when Rhett was out of sight. “Jenna hasn’t even been gone twenty-four hours and Rhett feels like he’s in the way.”
“It’s a big change for both of you. How did it go yesterday?”
“Jenna cried. Rhett cried. He was sullen all day yesterday, and the first thing he asked this morning is when she’s coming home. I felt like a total ass for arranging her stay in rehab. Maybe she could get clean and still be here, you know?”
“It’s not long in the grand scheme of things and could make a real difference. That would make everything worth it. A kid deserves to grow up feeling safe. Your sister is lucky to have you to step in and help her. You’re giving both of them another chance.”
He blew out a breath. “How did you know exactly what I needed to hear this morning?”
Color rose to her cheeks. “It’s the truth.”
It wasn’t just the words she spoke that made him feel better. It was the fact that she’d come to check on him. Okay, maybe she’d come to check on Rhett, but David still reaped the benefit. She was exactly what he needed. “Thank you.”
They stared at each other for several long moments, and the spark of awareness that connected them seemed to shimmer and thrum in the air. It made him want to pull her in and kiss her again, but then he thought of Tracie and the kid who’d reported him Friday night. Normally, David didn’t care who saw him doing what, but Erin was different. She was too good to be dragged through any sort of gossip mill, especially when she was starting her new program at the community center.
He crossed his arms over his chest to resist the urge to touch her. “Rhett won’t be long.” He made his tone purposefully chilly.
Disappointment flashed in her brown eyes before she cocked her head and studied him, as if she was trying to riddle out secrets. “This place is different during the day,” she said, moving away from him and trailing her long fingers over the polished mahogany of the bar. He could imagine a lot of other places those fingers should be traveling. Namely all over his damn body.
“The architecture is beautiful.” She pointed to the vaulted ceiling, where rough-hewn beams stretched across the open space.
“Logan helped me design it,” David said, following her as she moved through the high tables. Following her like a puppy on a leash. Never had he felt so under a woman’s spell as he did with Erin. The crazy part was she had no idea the power she had over him.
“Did he do the renovations, too? When I was growing up, this place was a grocery store, then it stood vacant for a number of years.”
He’d forgotten that she was a Crimson native. The town was a tight-knit community and everyone seemed to know their neighbors and their neighbors’ business. But before Rhett started school, David had never heard of Erin MacDonald. “The building was bank-owned when I bought it. I got a great deal.”
She smiled at him over her shoulder. “You must have had a clear vision.”
“I went to college on a baseball scholarship, but only lasted a couple of years. It sounds crazy now, but I took a brewing lab sciences class freshman year and got hooked on the process. I was good at it, but baseball came first. When I got drafted, the beer brewing moved to the back burner for a few years. I stopped playing ball, but then Jenna needed me out here. I needed a job and had enough money to make the business work.”
“Why did you give up baseball?”
He gave a harsh laugh. “Not exactly my choice. I screwed things up pretty good. Not worth rehashing the details, but suffice it to say it was totally my fault.”
“You do that too much,” she said, moving toward him until she was directly in front of him. “You take the blame for anything that goes bad.”
David felt his eyes narrow. “Only when I deserve it.”
She poked him in the chest. “It seems like you’re of the opinion that you always deserve it.”
He clamped his mouth shut and stared down at her. There was no right way to respond to that. He didn’t always do the wrong thing, but the times he’d messed up in his life had resulted in grim consequences for the people around him.
“You can’t control everything. Sometimes bad stuff happens no matter what you do to prevent it.”
He wrapped his hand around her finger and lowered it. “Other times it can be prevented, and I’ve often failed at that.”
He expected her to wrench out of his grasp, but she surprised him by gently squeezing his hand. “I wish you saw yourself the way I see you.”
David felt her words like a vise clamping around his heart. The ways this woman could wreck him boggled his mind. Pulling away from her, he took several long steps toward the back hallway. “Rhett, you almost ready?” he called up the stairs.
“Coming,” the boy shouted as his small feet pounded down the steps. He bounded into the hallway, the ever-present blue dog tucked against his side.
“Shoes,