Page 15 of Spark of Attraction

She huffed out a breath and crossed her arms over her chest, mashing her breasts into a delightful mound I wanted to play with. “I’m really pissed at Josh for making you promise to back off back in high school. If I’d been dating you…” Her voice broke but I could hear her unvoiced I wouldn’t have ended up with Gareth.

Which we both knew wasn’t necessarily true.

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty. You can’t play that type of coulda-woulda-shoulda mind game with yourself. You can’t change the past.”

She blew out another long breath and shook her head. “Yeah, Rebecca says that too. I’ll tell him when we’re at Mom’s for Sunday dinner. Mom’ll back me up and make sure he understands he’s got no say in who I date.”

“All right. But if you need me, text me and I’ll be there, all right?”

“Thank you, I know I can trust you,” she said, her confidence in me strong in her tone.

Except I’d broken my promise to Josh, hadn’t I?

CHAPTER NINE

ELLIE

Malcolm stuck around until the roofer came, giving me the same reason that Josh had done. The roofer might give me a better deal with a guy keeping an eye on him. Especially since he knew Mal.

Once the roofer pulled out of the driveway, Mal turned to me. “I gotta get going, too.” He tilted his head. “D’you want to go out tomorrow? Maybe drive to Peterborough? Play tourist, then have dinner?”

“Like an actual date?”

He nodded. “Like an actual date. Though you don’t need to worry about doing the whole hair and makeup routine. Unless you want to.”

“You’re supposed to say I don’t need makeup, that I’m beautiful just the way I am.”

He barked a laugh and wrapped his arms around me until I rested against him. “Well, that’s true. Or we could rent a boat and go over to the sandbar and swim, then do dinner here.”

“I haven’t gone swimming in ages but it’s too early in the year. The water’s still freezing. As for dinner here, you’d have to promise your idea of dinner isn’t ordering a burger at Pinpals.” Port Paxton’s five-pin bowling alley.

Was that a hint of a blush on his cheeks?

I shut my mouth which had dropped open. “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you actually did that to Natalie or one of your other dates?”

He shrugged, but his blush deepened. “Not Natalie. A girl from Toronto who was staying at her parents’ cottage and was bored.”

“When was this?” Please tell me it wasn’t recently.

“The summer I got my first job apprenticing. I was young and broke and I thought combining dinner with bowling sounded like fun.”

I laughed at his sheepish expression. “Lesson learned then.” I thought about his suggestions. “Wandering around Peterborough sounds fun. I haven’t been there in ages.”

“Good. I’ll pick you up around eleven?”

“Sounds like a plan.” A plan to keep us out of Josh’s line of sight until I had a chance to talk to him about Malcolm and I dating. I leaned up on my toes and kissed Malcolm’s neck, nuzzling his beard. I know a lot of women prefer clean-shaven guys, but I liked the way his beard scratched against my skin. “So where are you off to now?”

“I have a quote of my own to give to a client in…” He checked his watch and swore. “Thirty minutes and it’ll take me thirty-five to get there unless I break the speed limit.”

“Then go.” I stepped away from him and pushed his chest. “You mustn’t keep your client waiting.”

He gave me a hard lingering kiss, then grabbed his jacket and raced out of the house, the screen door banging behind him, calling, “See you tomorrow.”

I gave him a thumbs-up sign as he put his truck in gear and tore out of my driveway. Here’s hoping he remembered the speed trap down by Foster’s Glen and didn’t get a ticket.

Considering I’d accepted a date the first week I’d returned to Port Paxton, was I moving too fast? Nah. This was Malcolm, and dating him was a long time coming.

Malcolm was late that Saturday. Only by five minutes, but I’d half convinced myself I was being stood up. Then my phone dinged that a text message from Malcolm had arrived. Fuck.

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