Instead, I reached into my satchel until my fingers found the sharp edges of the business cards I’d brought along for the meeting. I pulled one out and handed it over to him. “I’m Tiffeny and I own an ice-cream shop a few miles from here. Come in and get some free ice cream whenever you guys want, okay?”
“Thanks,” Hot Dad said, pocketing my card before reaching out to shake my hand. “I’m Callen, and this is Winter.”
Winter waved at me, and I waved back, but I was terrified of saying anything for fear of making the situation worse again.
Because holy moly.
There were sparks of electricity running up my skin from where he gently squeezed my hand. The sparks became lightning bolts that exploded in my core and left me wondering exactly how inappropriate it would be to ask him to touch me somewhere else. Anywhere else.
If the guy could turn me on by shaking my hand, I had to imagine what it might feel like if he really touched me. But again, his daughter was right there and I was a complete stranger.
Apparently a very strange one at that, as of today.
He actually seemed like a pretty friendly, polite guy. He definitely did not deserve to be treated like a piece of meat or asked to touch random strangers.
“It’s nice to meet you,” he said, his deep, smooth voice ripping me back to reality where I was still holding his hand. It must have been my imagination, but just before I released it, I could have sworn I saw a flicker of heat deep within the green depths of his eyes.
But no, I had to be wrong. Guys who were dripping in tattoos and were hot as fuck dated and were interested in women who were conventionally hot as fuck.
While I didn’t mind the few extra pounds I carried around—I did own an ice-cream shop, for heaven’s sake—I definitely didn’t fit the conventionally hot as fuck bill. Snap the hell out it. It doesn’t matter. He’s a total stranger.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said. “I’d better get back inside for my meeting, but I hope you’ll come by for that ice cream sometime.”
“We will,” Winter promised.
Callen nodded and lifted his hand in a casual wave before taking Winter’s and leading her farther down the path to the parking lot. Clearly, our entire encounter hadn’t shaken him at all. He seemed cool as a cucumber while I was all hot and bothered and rehashing every one of the few words I’d said to him.
Of course, considering how much of a non-event the encounter had really been, I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t been shaken by it. I shouldn’t have been either.
That’s it. Temporary insanity break over. Get to work.
I inhaled a deep breath through my nose, squared my shoulders, and got my ass back to the manager’s office. She was just finishing up with her call when I knocked on her door.
She signed off and motioned me into a seat, an apologetic smile on her lips. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Hurst. It’s one of those days around here.”
“Call me Tiffeny, please. You don’t need to apologize. I understand all about those kinds of days.” I didn’t have them very often, considering I was never really that busy, but I was hopeful this meeting would change all of that.
“Only if you call me Shelly,” she said, moving her hand to the phone on her desk. “Would you like something to drink? I can ring one of the girls and ask them to bring us some tea or water perhaps?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I pulled a sheaf of papers I’d prepared for this meeting out of my satchel, ready to put the horrifying encounter with Callen the Hot Dad and Winter the Cute Kid out of my head and focus on my future.
Shelly must have seen I was ready to get down to business because she held out her hand for the papers. “Well, let’s jump in then. You said you had a proposition for me?”
“Yes, I do. Like I started explaining to you over the phone, I’m thinking about branching out my business and, if it’s within your budget, doing something special for the kids on Fridays. Every Friday, I could come up with a new flavor of ice cream or bring new toppings and deliver them to you at lunchtime.”
Her eyes dropped to the proposal I’d drafted containing the exact details, flying to the bottom of the page where I’d printed the price. My heart nearly stopped beating as I waited but then raced when I saw her lips inching up into a smile.
“That’s well within our budget and I love the idea of ice-cream Fridays. It’ll give the children something to look forward to, and like I said, we’re always looking for things that set us apart from other centers. Supplying the children with homemade, handcrafted ice-cream flavors and toppings made especially for them certainly makes us sound snazzy.”
My eyes widened in surprise, a laugh making its way out of my mouth. “It certainly does.”
“Well, that’s settled then.” She held out her hand to shake mine, and this time, I didn’t practically seize up from something as simple as a handshake. “Shall we start next Friday?”
“Yes, I’ll be here,” I said, slightly dazed by how fast and relatively easy it had been to make my first big sale.
I was still in a state of shock when I reached my car and realized my phone was ringing.
I pulled it out, saw it was my mother calling, and stuffed it right back into my satchel. I didn’t know what she wanted from me, but I didn’t want to speak to her right then. I didn’t want her to ruin this for me. I just wanted to enjoy this win and bask in it for a little while longer.
If this worked out, the shop really would be okay. It was a huge moment for me. The kind of moment that my romance-loving heart wished I had someone to share it with, but hey, at least Julia would be happy for me.
Chapter 7
Callen
Our living room was finally properly unpacked. It had taken me a couple of days, but it had been worth it.
There were pictures of us, friends, and family on the walls. The TV had been connected and there were even scatter cushions on the couches.
I still didn’t quite understand the point of those, but Alice had always loved them, and keeping them around made me feel closer to her. Even if she would never see these, I still liked to buy new ones from time to time.
The new ones were black, as opposed to the brightly colored ones Alice had chosen for us, but at least they were shimmery. Winter and I had reached a compromise in the shop earlier. I wanted black. She wanted shiny. These were perfect for us.
Our gray couches were comfortable, packed out to form an L-shape to fit into the living room. Winter and I had gotten ourselves a new rug too, a bright red one that now sat underneath our coffee table.
Winter was picked up earlier from day-care and was now sitting cross-legged on the new rug, a coloring book opened on the table and a tub of crayons next to it. I sat on the couch with my guitar in my hands, my legs spread wide and my head bowed as I let the music wash over me.
“I like this song, Daddy,” Winter said, looking up from her coloring for the first time in almost an hour. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks, sweetheart.” I smiled and strummed once more before I set the guitar down on the couch next to me. “Hey, do you feel like going out somewhere this afternoon? It’s a Friday afternoon, after all. I think we should celebrate the coming weekend by going to the park.”
Her face lit up with a bright smile. “Yes. I love parks. We haven’t been to the park here yet.”
“No, we haven’t.” I got up, then held out my hand to help her to her feet. “But we’ve driven past it, so I know where to go.”
“You know everything, Daddy,” she said, looking up at me with that adoration she sometimes got in her eyes. It made me feel like a superhero and a failure all at once.
A superhero because that adoration was enough to make me feel like I could fly. A failure because, at the end of the day, I hadn’t managed to save the one person who had really mattered to us.
But I shook the feeling off, something I had become way too good at to protect her, and shrugged. “Not everything, but I do know a lot.”
She smiled and shook her head in disagreement. “Everything.”
Chuckling as I ran my hand through her soft hair, loose today, I accepted that there were worse fates in the world than having a daughter who thought you knew everything. Besides, it broke my heart to think that someday she wouldn’t think I knew anything, never mind everything. “Okay, baby. Sure, but remember that, okay?”
She frowned but nodded. “Okay, Daddy. I’ll remember.”
“I hope so,” I said, but I knew it was a lost cause. Eventually, she’d become a teenager and it didn’t matter what she thought now. She wouldn’t look at me like I was a superhero anymore.
It was another reason why I was determined to spend as much time with her as possible while she was little. She was only going to be little for so long. I could always go back to recording later in life, even if it wasn’t on the same scale as the band had been. I could write songs until the day I died, but this time with Winter was fleeting.
Spending it while traveling all around the country and eventually the world would have been something I’d have regretted later. I just knew it.
Since it was a Friday afternoon and a nice one at that, the park was packed when we got there. There were families everywhere and kids all over. Winter brightened up instantly, pointing at the monkey bars. “That girl is in my class. Can I go play with her, Daddy?”
“Sure, baby girl. Just stay where I can see you, okay?” I looked around until I found a spot I thought would be nice to settle in, then jerked my thumb at it. “I’ll be right over there if you need me.”
She nodded and turned to race off toward her friend. I made my way over to the old tree I’d pointed out to her, sinking down until I was sitting with my ass on the grass and my spine against its trunk.
As I watched Winter join up with a little blonde girl, I saw a woman who had to be the girl’s mother hovering near the play area. I knew the day was coming when Winter would ask me where her mother was, but I was glad we weren’t there yet.
Luckily, she was too young to remember any of what happened to Alice. It was a real blessing that she wouldn’t remember her mom like that. I had made her a box filled with some of Alice’s old things, letters she’d written to Winter after being diagnosed and pictures of her in various phases of her life.
When the time was right, I’d give her the box. I’d answer all of her questions and tell her about her mommy. I was just glad I didn’t have to do it today because that day was going to fucking suck furry donkey balls.
My phone ringing yanked me out of the rabbit hole my thoughts had been rushing down. I glanced at the screen, grinning when I saw it was Clark calling.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” I said when I answered, leaning with my head against the tree to talk to my best friend. He always seemed to know exactly when to call, when my thoughts were taking a turn toward the dark side and I needed to be distracted.
“Nothing much. Just thought I’d check in with you. How’s it going in South Carolina?”
“It’s nice,” I said, then looked up at the thick canopy of bright green above me. “It’s different, but it’s nice. Winter loves it.”
“That’s great news,” he replied. “So I’m guessing you guys are going to stay down there for a bit?”
“Yeah, I think so. I think it’s going to be good for us to be here.”
He sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy if you’re both happy, but I was hoping you hated it and wanted to move back.”
“No such luck.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Why’d you want us to move back? Do you miss us that much?”
“I don’t miss you,” he retorted. “I do miss the fuck out of my goddaughter, though. Now you? I was only hoping you would move back so we could work together again.”
Still chuckling, I flipped him off mentally before getting serious. “What are you talking about? We’re on sabbatical, remember?”
“Yeah, but I’ve been thinking about something. You and I should do an album together. Just the two of us. We’ll record the stuff we’ve always wanted to, have the kind of fun we couldn’t while being under contract and just get back to basics.”
I stilled, tracking Winter moving from the monkey bars over to the slide with my eyes. “It sounds like fun but not right now.”
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me know, but I’m still okay with taking some time off for now.” This last week with Winter had solidified the decision for me. The slower pace of life, us being able to spend more quality time together, and the lack of stress were good for us.
It was what I needed to find my feet again and it was good for Winter, too. Plus, having a father that had his shit together would ultimately also benefit her. And I needed time to track all my shit down before I could get it all together.
“Maybe I’ll give you a call in a couple of months and we can talk about it, but for now, I think I just need to breathe.”
“I get it.” He sighed. “But look, even if you just want to write a few songs, I’d be willing to split the profits from the album with you. You might need to breathe, but I need to record. It’s only been a week and I’m going out of my damn mind.”
“Yeah, you weren’t built for taking time off.” Writing didn’t sound too bad to me. It had always been my way of clearing my mind. “I’ll think about writing for you. In the meantime, there are those songs we wrote during the tour for the band we never got around to recording. You can always start with those.”
I knew Clark, and I knew he’d want to get started on something right away. Writing would take me some time, if I even decided to do it for profit again eventually. I didn’t want to leave Clark high and dry in the meantime.
“Yeah, I’d forgotten about those,” he said, his voice an octave higher with excitement. Hearing it made me smile. “I think I’ll do that. Thanks for reminding me. You wouldn’t mind if I used them solo? I’ll credit you for the writing, of course.”
“Sure, bro. No problem.” I spoke to him for a few more minutes, promising to let him know once I’d made up my mind about writing new material for him before we hung up.
Winter was walking toward me now, her friend and her mom leaving on the other side of the park. She was still smiling though, even if her friend was obviously done there for the day.
“Hey, sweetheart. You ready to leave or do you still want to play a while?” I pushed up off the ground and dusted off my butt. “It hasn’t been that long.”
As I ran my hands over my ass, I felt something in my back pocket. I stuck my fingers in and took out a business card, instantly recognizing it as belonging to Tiffeny. My blood heated for a second as I thought about her.
Damn, she was hot. What I’d imagined her curves to be like while she’d been sitting down hadn’t done them justice.
When she’d been standing only a few feet away from me after chasing me down outside, I saw I’d underestimated her body. The dress hadn’t exactly clung to her, but it had been cinched at the waist and gave me a much better idea about what lay beneath it.
And I’d liked what I’d seen.
I’d tried to fight it, but as soon as I’d touched her hand, it was like that one simple casual touch broke through to parts inside me I’d thought were dead and buried. I’d wanted her so much in that moment, it was like all the pent-up need that had been building for the past two years just slammed right into my crotch.
I’d thought about it later that night in the shower, trying to dissect why I had been so attracted to her and trying to work through the guilt I felt about it. Just like I’d told myself I would.
My mind hadn’t stayed on that, though. While I’d been standing there, trying to work it all out, it strayed again to what it might feel like to really touch her.
Before I could yank myself out of my fantasies, I’d gotten hard. Over thoughts about another woman.
Wrecked by guilt, I hadn’t touched my goddamn throbbing erection. But I hadn’t forgotten about it eit
her.
Sex wasn’t something that had been on my mind a lot for the last two years. After Alice had fallen pregnant and the symptoms started, we’d still done it occasionally, when she felt up to it.
Then Winter was born, and she was diagnosed, and treatment started, and we had a newborn to care for, and everything was just so busy and confusing and new. Sex fell by the wayside.
Just before one of her last rounds of chemo started, we’d gone away together for the weekend. Alice had insisted.
Clark had taken care of Winter and she’d whisked me off on one last romantic weekend away. Although I hadn’t wanted to believe it would be the last one, I was pretty sure Alice had known.
That weekend had been just about two years ago, and it had been the last time I’d had sex. There was nothing physically wrong with me, so every once in a while, in between the hectic craziness that was my life, I made a minute or two for myself. Took care of business.
I was only thirty-one years old, after all. But I’d never fantasized about a specific other woman. When it hadn’t been Alice I was thinking about, it was some nameless, faceless girl with luscious curves and a great rack.
Now that girl with the luscious curves and the great rack had both a name and a face. I’d freaked the fuck out at first, berated myself to within an inch of my life before I left that damn bathroom.
But then I’d realized that something Clark had been saying to me was true. Alice was gone and she wasn’t coming back. Sure, I didn’t think she’d want me to be whoring around, but she wouldn’t want me holing up and isolating myself like I had been either.
I’d even done some reading on it, dating after losing a spouse. It seemed like the norm for feeling an interest in starting to see someone new was anything from a month to five years. A month seemed ludicrous to me, but five years?
Keeping Secrets Page 5
