Page 12 of His to Cherish
I hadn’t decided.
When I finally pushed off the counter and turned so I could say goodbye to Aidan, he was standing a few feet from me. His hands were shoved into the front pockets of his jeans and he was staring at me—watching me intently. His lips were twisted into an indecipherable expression and a deep line formed between his wrinkled brows.
Whatever he was thinking while he looked at me disappeared when he looked away and toward my front door.
I followed him as he started walking in that direction.
“You working in the yard tomorrow?”
“Um. Yeah, I’ve got three tons of mulch being delivered.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, one hand wrapped around my front doorknob, the other now holding his key chain.
Looking down, he spun the keys around his fingers before grasping them in his fist.
He nodded once and opened the door. “Okay.”
I frowned at the strange reply. “Thanks again for all your help tonight.”
“It was fun.”
He sounded like it’d been anything but fun, but I didn’t take offense to it. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye before he hurried down my front walk like he couldn’t wait to get away from me, climbed into his truck, and peeled out of my driveway.
Long after his lights had disappeared around the corner and up the hill, I was still standing in the doorway, trying to figure out what had just happened.
—
It took me almost an hour to get ready to work in my yard Saturday morning.
Then I scolded myself in the mirror, and removed all the makeup I had put on.
To haul mulch.
The idiot girl inside me thought…maybe hoped…Aidan would stop by. The way he’d left the night before made it seem as if he’d been thinking about it. And that idiot girl inside me started screaming, “Look pretty! Look pretty!”
Then I smacked her upside the head and told her to shut up, washed my face, and threw my freshly washed hair into a bun before I could do something stupid like blow-dry and straighten it.
“You’re working in your yard all day,” I reminded myself with a scowl.
I had washed off all my eye makeup, but my light blue eyes looked strange. Brighter than normal. Hopeful. Maybe slightly horny. I shook my head at myself.
“You’re a moron.”
I turned and left the bathroom, dressed in cut-off yoga capri pants and the ugliest, most oversized shirt I could find.
Because I was not trying to look good for the man I barely knew, who had just lost his son.
It wasn’t like I was going to see him anyway.
—
I was in the middle of loading up my second wheelbarrow of mulch when I heard the familiar rumble of a large truck pull up to my curb. My spine stiffened and the shovel in my hand froze midscoop.
Slowly, I forced my limbs to remember how to work and dumped the mulch into the wheelbarrow as I heard the door open and close. There was a loud clanking sound that rang in my ears but I still didn’t look.
I had no idea what to do or say, so I continued shoveling mulch until a shadow fell over the large pile.
I set the shovel against the massive mulch pile and looked up.
