Page 10 of Happy Trails & Honey Pots

AJ moved around the kitchen, grabbing the plates and silverware. I emptied the green beans and mac and cheese intoserving dishes and filled our glasses with ice while AJ took the food to the dining room table. Because of my work schedule and AJ’s baseball practice, we only got to eat dinner as a family properly about once a week, but when we did, I liked to do it at the table with the TV off. Walter usually complained that he was missing his shows, but I think deep down, he enjoyed the family time.

“Dinner’s ready.” I poked my head around the corner to the front room.

“I’m comin’, I’m comin’,” he grunted as he switched off the TV.

By the time I’d filled our glasses with our preferred drinks, mine with Diet Coke, AJ’s with Dr. Pepper, and Walter’s with ginger ale, Daisy, AJ, and Walter were all in their dinner spots. Daisy had a bed in the dining room that she laid on while we ate, a tactic that only slightly deterred her from begging at the table for the duration of our meal.

I handed out the drinks and then took my place. We joined hands.

“Who’s turn, is it?” AJ asked.

“I think it’s yours.” I nodded toward him.

We always said grace when we sat down to eat a meal. It was something that Walter’s late wife had done, and he’d carried on the tradition once she passed. I remembered the first time I was there for dinner and how nice it was to pray in a house where it wasn’t used to make me feel bad. After dinner, I was quiet, and Walter had asked what was wrong. I told him about how I felt when we prayed, and he said, “In this house, we pray to give thanks, out of love, and when we need to talk to God. Not for punishment or shame.”

AJ took a deep breath. “Thank you, God, for this food and the roof over our heads and for our health and for the movie about Dad and for?—”

There was a knock at the door, and I jumped an inch off my chair as Daisy barked loudly.

“I’ll get it!” AJ shot straight up in the air like a Jack-in-the-Box.

“Are you expecting someone?” I asked Walter as I stood.

“People know better than to interrupt me at supper time.” He was already reaching across the table.

A little guilt crept in over the fact that I’d inadvertently been starving the poor man. Sure, my intentions had all been well and good. At his age, I’d wanted to make sure he didn’t have a heart attack and help with inflammation, but the result had led to him scarfing down fried chicken like he was on death row, and it was his last meal.

Daisy let out two more barks before I heard the front door open and a husky voice ask, “Hi, is your mom home?”

The deep voice sounded vaguely familiar and sent a skitter of tingles racing down my spine, which I ignored as I stood and walked through the kitchen. Before I turned the corner, I felt a tickle of butterfly wings low in my belly in anticipation. Anticipation of what, I had no idea.

“Who’s this?” I heard the man ask.

“That’s Daisy,” AJ responded.

“Hello, Daisy, you are such a pretty girl.”

My head was down as I stepped around the corner. When I looked up, it took a beat before my brain caught up with what my eyes were seeing. My feet continued to move, walking at a steady pace before stopping next to my son, but I didn’t feel them anymore. I couldn’t feel my body at all. I was outside of it.

The man standing on my porch was the man I’d seen on the red carpet. The man whose assistant had been trying to get a hold of me. The man who was going to be playing the role of my late husband in a movie about his life.

Miles Ford was at my house.

Everyone talked about how hot he was. He’d been named the Sexiest Man Alive. He was on nearly every woman in the world’s hall pass list. I’d always thought he was attractive, but this man, the man I was looking at now, was not just attractive.

His six-foot-four athletic frame, wide shoulders, broad chest, symmetrical face, strong jaw covered in a sexy bad-boy five o’clock shadow, whisky-colored bedroom eyes, and chiseled arms were all aesthetically pleasing. But what I hadn’t expected was the intangible. What no one could have prepared me for was his primal, animal magnetism that was so potent I was choking on it. I was literally finding it difficult to breathe. As a healthcare professional, I truly believed that there was a lack of oxygen getting to my brain. My ears were ringing, and I was seeing stars—actual blinking flashes of light.

“Mom, Mom, Mom.”

I heard AJ’s voice, but it sounded far away.

When I felt my son pulling at my arm, I snapped out of my trance. “What?”

“Mr. Ford saidhi.”

“Oh, hi.” I blinked and looked up once more at Miles Ford.

The second we locked eyes again, I felt myself being pulled back into his vortex of sexiness. A black hole of hotness.

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