“They’ll be there. Now if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll write you a check.” He fished a leather checkbook from the hip pocket of his black slacks and reached into his shirt pocket for a pen.
“Oh, wait. That’s not necessary,” Traci heard herself saying. “I mean, the court will send you papers showing the exact amount and where to send it and everything.”
“I understand that,” he said, “but I was thinking that you could probably use some cash right now, and I meant what I said to the judge about making full restitution.”
“No, that’s not necessary,” she said, and once again had to backtrack. “I mean, the fifteen hundred dollars should cover everything.”
“Listen,” he argued, “these guys have given me a good picture of things. I know the doorknob was ruined and windows were broken and that torn awning must have cost a pretty penny….”
“It’s all right,” she rebutted. “Honestly, I—I think I may be able to repair the awning instead of replacing it, and having the boys’ help will mean I can spend less for labor costs…and, well, a couple of the estimates I got were on the high side, you know. Anyway, I’d rather not.”
“Take my money, you mean,” he said, smiling when she blanched. “Okay, let’s do it this way, then. I’m a fair to middlin’ carpenter. Why don’t I make some of the repairs myself? That will save you considerably more on labor costs than anything this duo is likely to manage, and I’ll feel better about this mess.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t think—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he interrupted, with a wag of his finger. “I insist.”
Traci could not prevent the breakout of a smile. “That’s kind of you, but I’m still not sure—”
“I am,” he said, beaming back at her. “Please, that’s the way I want it.”
She made him no answer, merely subsided into an uncomfortable smile. So, she was going to get her ice-cream shop open after all. Thank God—and Wyatt Gilley. No doubt about it. She owed him a debt of thanks, but was she wrong to think that the man wanted more than to recompense her for the damage done by his sons? An exercise in faith, she reminded herself, and broadened her smile.
“They’re really not such bad boys,” Wyatt said as they walked toward her car. “They probably didn’t realize they were doing anything wrong in the beginning, then later they were afraid to admit they’d done it. They thought the place was abandoned, you know.”
“And so it was,” Traci admitted. “My grandfather left the shop to me when he died three years ago, but I was living in Dallas then. My grandmother didn’t feel she could run the business alone, but I couldn’t bring myself to sell it, so we just closed it up and let it sit.”
“And?” he prompted.
They had reached her car, a sleek, black, luxury model she really ought to get rid of in order to spare herself the monthly payments, but she wouldn’t, except as a last resort. She opened the door and turned to face him.
“And I decided I’d be happier in Duncan running Grandpa’s ice-cream shop than running the rat race in Dallas,” she said.
He lifted a skeptical brow, blue eyes twinkling. “That’s it? You just got tired of the big city and the high-powered career, so you ditched it for an icecream shop in Duncan, Oklahoma?”
She shook her head, laughing softly. “The highpowered career’ was a rather demanding job as a legal secretary, and I never was really happy in the big city. My parents moved me there when I was in high school, but this has always been home to me. What about you, Lieutenant Colonel Gilley? What brought you here?”
He shrugged. “My boys were born here. I was stationed at Fort Sill then. We decided to live here because my wife—my ex-wife—was developing an aversion to anything military, including me.” He smiled when he said that, but Traci couldn’t help noticing the sadness that darkened his blue eyes. He seemed to sense her thoughts, for he suddenly switched his gaze to the boys, tussling together in the distance as they ran across the parking lot. “It seemed like a nice town, a good place to raise a couple of kids,” he said, “so when I retired last year, we moved back.”
She nodded, pretending to understand, when in truth, any number of questions were on the tip of her tongue. She settled on the one that seemed the most innocuous. “Aren’t you awfully young to be retired?”
He laughed then. “Not really. I went in right out of college. I retired last year with twenty years of service. That makes me forty-one, in case you’re wondering.”
“I was,” she admitted. “You seem younger.”
He grinned. “I always knew immaturity would prove worthwhile at some point in my life.”
She smiled. “I doubt that’s the reason. Perhaps your boys keep you young.”
“No way.” He shook his head emphatically. “Believe me, those two scamps have aged me dramatically in the last year or so. I guess we’re still adjusting. We didn’t spend much time together before they came to live with me. My career separated me from them for long periods, then when they were six, their mother and I divorced, so we didn’t even live together when I could be with them. Then a little over a year ago, she decided she’d done her share of the parenting, so she dropped them off with me and headed for Paris.”
“Paris, France?”
He nodded. “Marie is French. I met her when I was stationed in Europe.”
Traci didn’t know what to say. On one hand, she was appalled that a mother would seemingly abandon her young sons to a father they hardly knew. On the other hand, she didn’t want to judge the woman wrongly. She could have had very good reasons for turning her sons over to their father, and who was to say that it wasn’t for the best of everyone involved? Wyatt himself didn’t even sound particularly judgmental. True, his words had seemed condemnatory, but he had delivered them in a light, uninflected voice, almost as if she’d dropped them off on her way to the grocery store! Could he really be that casual about it? she wondered. Remembering how hotly he had defended his sons when she’d first approached him about what they’d done at the shop, she didn’t think his feelings toward his boys were at all casual. But then, she might be reading more into it than she ought to. Wyatt Gilley was nearly a total stranger to her, after all. That thought had her searching for a polite means by which to extricate herself from what had become an embarrassingly personal conversation. She took a deep breath.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll…settle into…the situation soon,” she managed before stepping behind her opened car door. “Thank you again for the way you resolved the suit. I—I’m sorry it came to that.”
He shook his head, shrugging. “My fault. I should have listened when you first tried to tell me what they’d done.”
She opened her mouth, thought better of what she was about to say, then closed it again only to smile weakly. “It’s all worked out now. That’s what counts.”
“You’re generous to say so.”
“Not really,” she refuted quickly. “I’m just happy I’ll be able to get my shop open after all. It was looking rather bleak for a while.”
“My fault again.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
He chuckled, a teasing gleam to his eye. “I know.”
For some reason she felt a thrill pulse through her at that. What was it about