And Dillon.
Though part of her knew she wasn’t being very realistic, she was hoping that Dillon would once again be at the class, filling in for Callum the way he had initially.
But when Friday rolled around, not only wasn’t Dillon there but neither was Becky. In their place, looking very much like a fish out of water, was Callum. Dillon’s older brother arrived a few minutes before the class was scheduled to begin, flanked on either side by one of the twins and doing his best to look as if he was actually up to this challenge.
This was a man who had helmed the purchase of large plots of commercial properties within and around Rambling Rose. Blessed with astute business acumen, Callum had gotten in on the ground floor of what he and some members of his family referred to as the town’s “gold rush.” He was a contractor accustomed to juggling several projects at the same time, but even with all that going for him, he still appeared to be no match for Luna and Sasha, the two little girls he had adopted when he had married Becky.
One look at the man and Hailey could see that he clearly needed help.
With effort, Hailey put her disappointment at Dillon’s absence aside and made her way over to his harried looking older brother.
“You look like you’re a little overwhelmed here,” she observed with a smile. “Would you like a hand with your energetic twosome?”
He flashed a sheepish smile at the spa’s manager and said, “I’d be very grateful for any help you can possibly offer.”
Hailey’s smile widened. “My pleasure.” She turned her attention to the twins. Today they were dressed in matching turquoise leotards. “Hi, girls, welcome back.” She tousled one of the girl’s hair. “Remember me?”
Two identical heads enthusiastically bobbed up and down.
“Is it okay if I help your dad?” she asked solemnly, addressing each of the twins. “He might not know what to do since he wasn’t here last time.” Again both little girls nodded. They obviously didn’t absorb all the words, but they looked very pleased to be consulted. “Thank you,” Hailey said, “I appreciate that.” And then, sitting down next to Sasha—she silently congratulated herself at getting better at telling the girls apart—Hailey asked their father, “Where’s Becky today? Why didn’t she come with you?”
Considering the nurse’s busy schedule, Hailey thought that the Mommy and Me class would have been something Becky would have looked forward to as a break in her hectic routine.
“Linus’s father, Eric, turned up with Linus at the pediatric clinic this morning,” Callum told her, making a grab for Luna who was about to escape and fraternize with a little boy in the row behind them.
Hailey was surprised to hear about Linus’s return. Barely four months old, Linus was regarded as quite the celebrity in Rambling Rose since, his mother, Laurel, had gone into premature labor at the opening of the pediatric clinic. Becky and Dr. Green had tended to her before transferring her to the hospital in San Antonio to give birth. From all indications, that would have been the end of the story if Laurel hadn’t suddenly reappeared weeks later, only to leave Linus on the doorstep of the clinic.
Stephanie Fortune—Dillon, Callum and Steven’s sister—had stepped up to temporarily become the abandoned baby’s foster mother. Stephanie had grown very fond of the infant when Laurel’s old boyfriend, Eric Johnson, had abruptly turned up to claim the boy as his son.
That had been a couple of months ago and Stephanie, according to what Becky had told her, still missed the infant terribly.
“I thought Eric left town with the baby,” Hailey said, looking at Callum.
“He did, but he came back to talk to Dr. Green. Eric’s worried about Linus because he doesn’t think the baby’s growing at the proper rate he should. Becky said that Eric thought it might be because the baby had been born several weeks prematurely, but the baby’s father wanted to be sure that there was nothing else wrong so he brought Linus back to be checked out.”
Hailey could certainly understand that. “Better safe than sorry,” she agreed. Since Callum hadn’t mentioned it, she thought she’d ask. “I take it that there’s been no word about Laurel’s current whereabouts?”
“Nobody’s seen Laurel since the day she left Linus at the pediatric center.”
When that had happened, it had seemed to Hailey as well as several others that events had come full circle. Or, better yet, that poetic justice was involved. Leaving Linus on the doorstep of the new pediatric center seemed like echoes of the past because the center had been built on the foundation of what had once been the Fortune’s Foundling Hospital.
Callum was about to say something else to Hailey, but whatever he intended to say, she never got a chance to hear it. Luna, anxious for his undivided attention, had suddenly pulled on his arm. Caught off guard, because he had been leaning on that arm, Callum almost fell over.
Hailey managed to suppress her urge to laugh at what looked like a comical scene. Instead, she said seriously, “You have to be careful. These little girls of yours are really fast,” she warned him. “And they do outnumber you.”
“Tell me about it,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how Becky does it, working all day and then coming home to these two live wires.” With one arm around each twin, he hugged both of the girls. “I get worn out just thinking about it.”
Hailey laughed. “From what I’ve heard, moms come with permanently rechargeable batteries,” she told Callum. “And don’t feel like you need to keep up with Linda, either,” she said, indicating the instructor who had just walked into the room. “She’s been doing this sort of thing for a few years now. Just do what you can,” she advised. “The key thing to remember is to have a good time bonding with your girls.”
Callum smiled at Hailey as he nodded. “Good advice,” he said just as the class officially began.
She was full of good advice, Hailey thought, settling in to help Callum with his daughters. Too bad she couldn’t seem to take her own to heart and stop thinking about Dillon.
* * *
But she found that it was hard to stop thinking about the man when their paths kept crossing. Or almost kept crossing. By the time the weekend rolled around, she had just barely missed running into Dillon a number of times.
Just two ships passing one another in the night, Hailey thought philosophically.
She felt frustrated. There had to be some way they could travel in the same direction, at least for a little while, she thought.
* * *
“I could sure use a little help here, Janelle,” Hailey murmured under her breath the following Saturday morning as she drove to Mariana’s weekly flea market. “I’m trying my best to grab onto life with both hands just the way you always told me to,” she told the memory of her best friend, “but so far, life seems to just be slipping through my fingers. At least when it comes to Dillon.”
She sighed as she continued making her way to the flea market.
Maybe she was being too impatient. Janelle had always said if something was meant to be, it would happen, usually when you were just about ready to completely give up.
“Sure hope you’re right about that,” Hailey silently said to her friend, “because I’m pretty close to giving up on that hunky cowboy-hyphen-construction guru.”
Yes, she wanted to find out what his secret was and why he had suddenly withdrawn when she had told him he had the makings of being a great dad. But there was a fine line between determination and stalking, and there was absolutely no way that she wanted to accidentally blunder into that category.
Okay, she told herself as she reached her destination, she had very little free time to herself these days and there didn’t seem to be a letup coming anywhere in the near future. Which of course was a good thing as far as the spa went. But this was an island of time she had managed to cut out for herself and she needed it. She was going to use that time to see what
treasures she could find at Mariana’s.
Specifically, the treasures she was on the lookout for were frog figurines, something she had started collecting way back in her early teens. Every few weeks, she would hit the flea market, Rambling Rose’s very own treasure trove, to see if there were any new figurines there waiting to be added to her personal collection.
Searching through the hastily assembled tables that seemed to go on for endless row after row was both her hobby and her diversion. Just looking through all these things was its own reward, and whenever she actually found a figurine, it was a little like Christmas morning when she was a kid all over again.
She parked her car in the lot that stretched out along the fairground’s perimeter. Getting out and eager to get started, she was completely focused on the hunt before her. For the first time in a while, she wasn’t even thinking about Dillon.
Which was probably why she didn’t see the man until she was practically right on top of him.
Actually, she was on top of him, having walked right into someone without even realizing it.
Their bodies collided and it was all she could do to keep from falling down. The only reason she regained her balance at all was because the person she had walked into grabbed her hard by her shoulders in an effort to keep her upright.
Hailey began to apologize before she realized whom she had walked into.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—Dillon,” she exclaimed, practically doing a double take. Hailey tried to back up and found she couldn’t.
Belatedly, Dillon realized he was holding onto her. Not only that, but it took him a second to release his hands from her shoulders. Electricity shot through him, as if holding her like that felt right somehow.
He was going to have to watch that.
“I didn’t realize you would be here,” she cried, feeling genuinely flustered and more than a little tongue-tied, which was highly unusual for her. “Sorry,” she apologized again. “I didn’t mean to walk into you like that.”
Rather than be standoffish, which was what she half expected, since she’d gotten the impression that he was avoiding her, Dillon looked amused.
“Who did you mean to walk into?” he asked Hailey.
“What?” And then she realized that he was teasing her. She laughed, some of her nervousness leaving her. “Nobody. I was just trying to get my bearings. The people who bring their things to Mariana’s Market never seem to be in the same place twice. They’re always switching around so it’s like a brand new treasure hunt each and every time.”
Dillon looked at it from the point of view of a businessman. “They do that so they can try to catch your eye with something new, something you didn’t even know you were looking for until you see it.”
Hailey looked impressed. She wouldn’t have thought a flea market would have any allure for him. “You sound as if you’re talking from experience.”
“I am. Secondhand experience, actually,” he readily admitted. “But still valid in this context. Steven came here just last month and found this really cool scrapbook while he was browsing one of the stands.”
“Oh?” He’d caught her attention even as she continued weaving in and out of the rows, looking at what the various sellers had on display. “What made it so cool?” She couldn’t help being curious about what Dillon and his brothers might have found appealing at a flea market.
“It was filled with old articles about the town, you know, the way it was back when it was first built,” he told her, following Hailey as she turned down another row. “There was even an article about the old Foundling Hospital—except it wasn’t old at the time.”
“That sounds really interesting. I’d love to see the scrapbook sometime,” she told him in all sincerity.
“Okay, I’ll ask Steven about it and see if I can get him to lend it to you.” The next row was rather crowded so it took him a moment of weaving in and out before he could continue talking. “He seems pretty taken with the scrapbook himself. Looking through it is like looking into a passageway between the past and the present. I could almost see the wheels in his head turning as he was making more plans for future projects.”
Dillon realized that he was going on and on, monopolizing the conversation and not giving Hailey a chance to talk. He supposed that was because of his nerves. He found himself being really interested in her despite all his attempts not to be. “So, what brought you here?” he asked.
Hailey was intently searching for one of the sellers she had connected with the last time she was here. So far, she hadn’t been able to find the woman. Preoccupied, she answered, “Frogs.”
Dillon abruptly stopped walking and looked at Hailey. “Excuse me?”
She turned to look at him over her shoulder. He looked so stunned that she had to laugh. And quickly followed that with an apology. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh like that. I’m not laughing at you,” she added. “I’m laughing with you.”
“But I’m not laughing,” Dillon deadpanned.
He looked so serious for a second that she became flustered again. She really didn’t want to mess up this rare opportunity, especially since he seemed to be in a good mood and they were hitting it off.
“I’m sorry, Dillon. I didn’t mean to imply—”
“It’s okay, Hailey, I’m just messing with you,” he told her, waving away her apology. “But seriously, you’re here looking for frogs?” he repeated. He wouldn’t have thought she was the kind who would have wanted a pet frog. She struck him as more of a pet puppy person.
“Frog figurines,” she clarified. “I come here to Mariana’s flea market every few weeks, hoping to find another figurine to add to my collection.”
She sounded serious, he thought. “How big is your collection?” Dillon asked.
“Not very big,” she admitted. She was familiar with the people in the next row and knew there were no figurines to be found at their tables. Pausing, she looked up at Dillon and answered his question. “At last count, I had almost twenty figurines, all different,” she specified, since that was important to her. And then she laughed softly. “You’d be surprised how many of these things there are out there once you start looking.”
Intrigued, he asked, “Why did you?”
She didn’t quite follow him. “Why did I what?”
“Start looking for figurines of frogs?” he said, supplying the rest of his question. “I mean, it’s not something that is typically collected—at least, I wouldn’t think so,” he amended. He didn’t want her to think he thought her hobby was odd—just maybe a little unusual.
Hailey shrugged. “I guess it goes back to when I was a little girl. I always loved the story about The Frog Prince. I must have made my mother read that story to me at least a hundred times before I finally learned to read it for myself.”
“The Frog Prince,” Dillon repeated, still trying to understand the reason behind her fascination. “As in you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your prince?” he asked.
She blushed a little, something that he found instantly endearing. “Something like that,” she admitted.
“And did you?” Dillon wanted to know. “Did you meet your prince?”
“No,” she admitted, thinking of some of the wrong choices she had made in her life. “Not yet.”
“Well, I guess I know how that is,” he said, commiserating with her. “Kissing your share of frogs, I mean.” When she looked at him curiously, Dillon quickly explained, “I’ve probably kissed my share of... What’s the female equivalent of frogs? Froggettes?” he asked, testing the word out.
For some reason, the word he had come up with really struck her as funny. Hailey started to laugh, really laugh. Hard.
Listening to her, Dillon found himself captivated by the sound of her laughter. So much so that he could feel himself wanting her.
Reall
y wanting her.
Chapter Eight
“You know,” Dillon heard himself saying quietly so that no one could overhear them, “I wouldn’t mind being one of your frogs.” The moment the words had come out of his mouth, he was afraid that they could be misconstrued, or, at the very least, they didn’t come out quite right. He didn’t want Hailey to think he had lost his mind. Or that he was putting moves on her. That would be too crass. “I mean...”
At a loss, he wasn’t sure just how to finish his sentence.
He was shy, Hailey realized, delighted by the very idea. Who would have ever thought that someone as incredibly sexy and good-looking, not to mention talented, as Dillon Fortune could actually be shy?
She smiled at him, doing her best to encourage Dillon to continue his thought—and to act on it.
“I think I know what you mean,” she told him.
Was it his imagination, or did Hailey seem to move closer to him without actually taking a single step? Or maybe he had somehow just willed the distance between them to disappear?
Whatever the reason and however it happened, one moment he was looking down into her upturned face, the next moment Dillon was kissing her.
He wasn’t the kind of man who believed in engaging in public displays of affection. On the contrary, Dillon had trained himself to behave like an extremely private person, keeping his thoughts as well as his feelings tightly under wraps.
But this was different. He didn’t know why it was, he only knew that it was.
So very different.
He had caught himself thinking about kissing Hailey since that first day when she had uncorked that unfortunate bottle of jasmine and wound up christening his shirt with it. That act alone, even though it was unintentional, should have made him extremely wary of her—but it hadn’t.
To be honest, nothing she had done had driven him away, even though, under normal circumstances, it would have.
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