“How soon can she visit?”
She laughs. “Do you have a plan in mind?”
I grin. Her laugh is impossible to resist. “We could show her how great Silver Hills is, introduce her to Clara and Lane, and the guys and Sadie…”
“And you and the girls…” she says, smiling.
“Me and the girls,” I echo.
“I’ll have to work on that. I think she’d love it here, I really do. She’d definitely like your house.”
I pretend to be hurt, clutching my heart. “Just my house?”
She laughs. “And your pepperoni bites.”
“I’m wounded. Wait until you taste my lemon chicken or my burgers or…shrimp fettuccini.” I keep throwing out food to see which makes her perk up the most. “My pizza?”
“Wow. You can make all that? I’m impressed.”
I reach out and take her pinky in mine. She looks away, her lips quirking up higher.
“What were you going to say earlier? When you said you’d been thinking about the kiss too…” I say.
Her cheeks tinge with pink. She glances at me, eyes wide, and it makes my stomach freefall into the ground.
“Yeah. Definitely been thinking about it,” she whispers.
I move in front of her, one hand on the window frame near her head and the other on her waist. She stares up at me, and I drown in her green eyes.
“You can't possibly have been thinking about it as much as I have,” I tell her.
She smirks. “I assure you, probably more.” She bites her lip. “But I’m not sure we should ever do it again.”
I run my thumb over her lower lip. “Oh, we should definitely do it again.” I lean in and kiss her and it is even better than I remembered. She kisses me back, lifting to her tiptoes to get closer and the eagerness in her sets a fiery need inside of me. Things quickly going from zero to one thousand.
“Dad!” Gracie yells from downstairs, but Tru jumps and sidesteps me like one of the kids is seconds from running into the room. “Never mind,” Gracie yells again.
Tru laughs shakily. “Sorry. That was a dramatic reaction for…just...yeah…ugh, you’ve got me all tongue-tied.” She laughs again and I do too, even though when her expression sobers, I can tell I’m not going to like what she’s about to say.
“It just makes me nervous to get involved with…a parent,” she says. “I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my job…or Cassidy’s education.”
“We wouldn’t let it. Would we? Or maybe…it’s the age difference too?” I ask.
She bites her lip. “It doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you.”
“It concerned me when I first found out, but more because I thought Ishouldbe bothered…and that it would bother you.”
We laugh at the way this conversation is going round and round.
“What if…we keep getting to know each other,” I say.
She drops her hand from my chest and I lift it back up to my lips, kissing her knuckles softly. Her mouth parts.
“This is just for us. Whatever happens,” I say. “And we won’t let anything stand in the way of your job or Cassidy’s education.”
“In theory, that sounds?—”
“Dad—” Gracie rounds the corner and now Tru does bolt to the side and away from me.