Page 36 of Luck of the Draw

Panic flooded through me, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. Was it because he looked close to walking away? Wasn’t that what I wanted? Or was it because I didn’t want the boys to know anything about my weekend with him? That was definitely part of it. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of him. I just didn’t want to admit I’d spent far more time naked with him than clothed.

I grabbed my keys out of my purse and shoved them at Liam. “Take your brother out to the car.”

“Why?” Liam demanded.

“You know what?” Dylan said in frustration, shaking his head. “Never mind. Congrats on your new job.” Then he walked out of the grocery store, leaving his cart in the aisle behind the cashier.

“Why did that man call you Deeandra?” Ollie asked, sounding confused.

“Because that’s her name, doofus,” Liam grunted.

“Since when?” Ollie asked.

“Since she wasborn,” his brother scolded. “Don’t you knowanything?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, his eyes widening. Then his face fell. “Nobody ever calls her that.” He glanced up at me with a worried look. “They call you Dee. I forgot.”

I finally got my senses about me and gave the boys a grim smile. “It’s okay. They’re both my names. Dee’s short for Deeandra.” And he was right. No one but Sam called me Deeandra, and rarely at that. “Let’s go. We’re going to be late to Sam’s, and I think she’s making her world-famous spaghetti and meatballs.”

Which, of course, would now remind me of Dylan and the spaghetti truce.

We headed out the exit, thankfully in a different direction than Dylan had gone, so we had little chance of running into him. We were almost to our car when Liam glanced up at me and asked quietly, “Mom, who was that guy?”

“No one you need to worry about.”

My heart broke into a million pieces because it was true. It was Dylan’s turn to flee.

Chapter Ten

Dylan

“That,my dear, sounds a lot like fate taking the wheel.”

I’d agreed to pick up Dottie before our visit to Goat Lady. I’d intended to pick up something to bring to Stella’s place—because it would have felt weird to go empty-handed, even though I was doing this under duress—but that had fallen through for obvious reasons. According to Dottie, it was for the best. Any sort of token gift would only encourage Stella, and if I’d brought food, there was a fifty-fifty chance the goats would end up eating it, and apparently each of them was on a different strict diet. I had to wonder again what I was getting myself into, but it was hard to care.

My mind was stuck on Deeandra. Or whoever she was.

I hadn’t meant to tell Dottie anything, but she’d taken one look at me after climbing into the car and said, “It’s obvious something happened, and we have a long enough drive for you to tell me everything.”

So I had.

I wasn’t really surprised she’d called it fate. Hell, it was embarrassing to admit it, even to myself, but it hadfeltlike fate for a brief glimmering moment.

The night before, when I’d left the shoes at her place, I’d told myself that was the end of it. I’d spent enough time looking in the rearview mirror back in North Adams to know I wasn’t interested in making a habit of it. But then I got back to my apartment and that balled-up note caught my eye. I’d picked it up to throw it away, then found myself unfurling it and smoothing it out. Studying it like it held all the answers to the universe, or maybe just to one woman’s heart.

It was then I’d called my sister. She didn’t answer, but my phone rang two minutes later with a FaceTime call from her.

I picked up, surprised to see Matteo next to her. They were outside in the garden, sitting on the bench covered in creeping vines, both of them grinning like they’d gotten away with something good.

“Mom’s been on a warpath since you hung up on her earlier,” Tina said. “We had to come outside to call you, or she would have ambushed us. She thinks we’re going to Matty’s house to grab some grappa. Says she needs it after her middle child stomped on her heart.”

“What’s going to happen when you go inside without it?”

“Well, obviously we’re still going to get it,” Matteo said, waving a hand. “We’re not total pazzos.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, still thrown off-balance because Matteo was there, and he wanted to talk. “I’m starting to think I am. Crazy that is.”

“You’re not thinking of coming back, are you?” Matteo asked, just as Tina said, “It’s about time you admitted it,” the smile on her face assuring me it was a joke. Mostly.

---