Page 22 of A Lesson for Laurel

There was no reason to talk about the date she had with Easton. It’d been a week and no word from him since. It might have been a thank you lunch even though she would have liked it to be more.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m where I belong and love what I’m doing.”

Finding a man she could love would take more time and effort than she wanted to put out.

8

TRICKY SITUATIONS

Saturday afternoon, Easton was outside pulling more weeds and trimming the bushes. It was early to do it, but he was hoping to catch sight of Laurel.

He couldn’t remember the last time he thought of a woman as much as her and didn’t know the next step to take.

He wasn’t sure what her schedule was, but he noticed her SUV was gone from her driveway midmorning. It was close to two now and he wondered if maybe she was working.

Twenty minutes later, he was fed up trying to find things to do outside of a house that wasn’t even his.

Yeah, he grew up here and spent enough time working on it, but he had other shit to do for his job that paid the bills. Abe had already given him crap about not going nuts working on the house.

His cousin wasn’t particular about things, but Abe didn’t want Easton to feel as if he was being taken advantage of.

When he came out of the garage after putting the hedge trimmers away, he saw Laurel pull into her driveway.

They made eye contact and it was probably one of those fate things that couldn’t have worked out any better.

“Hi,” he said when she got out.

She was in a pair of dark jeans, cute little striped canvas sneakers on her feet, an orange fleece jacket that was fitted to her body, and a floral print purse on her shoulder. A big bag. What did women put in those things? He hated Rachelle always had one and if she asked him to get something out of it, he thought he was sticking his hand into a black hole and wasn’t sure if he’d come out with something from 1940.

“Hey,” she said. “Can’t seem to take a day off, can you?”

“Always something to do,” he said.

“Yeah, I know that feeling well. I went home to visit my father and aunt. I haven’t seen them since I moved here back in December. We talk all the time, but it’s nice to see them.”

“New Haven, right?” he asked.

“That’s it,” she said. “I took them to lunch and then came home. They got their lectures in, which isn’t normally the case.”

It was the grin on her face that had him wondering. “I’ve gotten a few of them lately too.”

“I guess it just means that our families love us,” she said.

“That’s a good way to think of it.”

“I try to think of the positive,” she said. “It’s too hard to get sucked into another person’s drama and then we find ourselves creating our own or something similar to theirs.”

“I don’t know that men are like that,” he said. At least he wasn’t, but Rachelle always seemed to adsorb all around her too.

“Probably not,” she said.

He stood there trying to figure out the next thing to say and just blurted out, “Want to get a drink later?”

She lifted her eyebrow at him. “Just a drink, or some food with it?”

“Both,” he said.

“So not a thank you for help around the house?” she asked.

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