Page 50 of Loving Decker

“Oh you were? Hm. What could those be?” He wrapped his arms more fully around her, pulling her as close as he could. “I have lots of different things I think about you, but I’m saving some of them up for different occasions.”

“That I like to hear.” She stared up into his face with such a look of love, that he didn’t know what to do with her. He, of course, wanted to love her right back. But today was challenging, today was a day to support and care… but she was really staring into his eyes.

He could get lost in those eyes, so lost he could forget what he was even about. There was goodness and, right now, a twinkle that made him want to stare forever. Her lips were parted too. And full. And soft. Did she want him to kiss her? He moved closer without even noticing. He was a breath away, and she bit her bottom lip. The soft indent was fascinating to him. He tilted his head and leaned closer.

And then an alarm went off in her house.

She jumped and yelped, holding her heart. “What on earth!” She turned and raced inside.

His brain was muggy and confused for a moment, but then he followed her in. The loud, piercing, screeching, noise said more than one smoke detector was going off, and it brought real pain to his ears.

“I’ll go get a ladder.”

“No, chairs will work.”

Her house did not have raised ceilings like his. He grabbed a kitchen chair and followed her around, taking out every detector in the place, the noise gradually growing more quiet as they eliminated one noise maker at a time until finally they were all out. “Wow, I think every single one of those was blaring.” He wiggled his ear.

“I know. I can’t believe it. I thought for sure I recently changed these batteries. But I guess not.”

“What? I can’t hear you.” He laughed.

Then she mouthed a bunch of stuff and swatted him.

“Well, we got that taken care of. Do you have any nine-volt batteries?”

She shook her head. “We don’t have to do this now. I’m sure you have someplace to be.”

“Oh, yes we do. If we can’t find batteries here, I’ll be buying you some new ones and coming right back.”

“Deck.”

“Faith. Do you really think my mama would let me back in the house if I didn’t fix this?”

She sighed. “True. I can’t have you homeless.” She laughed. “Come on. They’re in the garage.”

They found a drawer full of batteries that looked to be relatively new. “Perfect. Let’s get these all back up and monitoring for smoke.”

“You’re on.”

They went back through the previous route, and one detector at a time was replaced in the ceiling.

When they were finally finished, he stood at the door again. This time, he just held out his knuckles. “See you tomorrow, hot shot?”

“See you tomorrow.” She watched him until he drove away.

And he told himself he would give a whole lot not to have to leave her alone in that house any longer.

Chapter Eighteen

Decker had to finish about ten more minutes of work for the Dawson Corporation, and then he was going to pick up Faith for a night of dancing. Heloveddancing with Faith. It had been years since any of the gang had hung out at the local dance hall.

But the accounting books were depressing, and he couldn’t be finished soon enough.

He looked up and saw Maverick standing in his office doorway. “Brother.”

“Doing the books?”

“If you’re here to see how things are going, only stick around if you want to be in a bad mood.”

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