Page 93 of Just One Fake Date

“I am. And tomorrow is a cooking day. This will influence results.”

She spoke with such conviction that Ty was curious, but he didn’t push his luck. “Your turn,” he said. “Tell me about your family.”

Twelve

Shannyn was seduced.It had been a long time since she’d gone out for a nice dinner, but that wasn’t the source of her pleasure. She enjoyed the intimacy of the restaurant, the food, but mostly she liked having Tyler’s attention. There was a little sizzle of attraction between them, one that disproved all her arguments to herself about this just being about checking details. She felt good, dressed up a little, and the glow of admiration in his eyes would have affected any woman’s pulse.

It could have been a real date.

It would have been easy to think of it as one. She reminded herself to have no expectations beyond the deal. He was trying to convince her that he was a nice guy and he was succeeding with ease. As soon as she admitted he’d won that challenge, would he turn off the charm? Shannyn didn’t want to see it vanish.

She was enjoying herself.

And she’d told Tyler the rules. To his credit, he wasn’t making any moves.

The problem was her post-Cole philosophy to live in the moment and follow impulse was a direct challenge to her new surviving-Tyler rules. It was just in her nature to be defiant. She’d put that inclination aside in high school and college, hoping to have her dreams come true, kind of as a reward for good behavior. In a way, having them shattered had revived her old habit of breaking all the rules, just because.

That must be why she already wanted to abandon these five.

It was only natural to wonder how much Tyler had to do with that change.

Shannyn belatedly realized he was waiting for her to speak. “Well, you met Aidan. Besides him, there’s just my mom.”

“The dressmaker.”

She nodded, wondering how much he’d be shocked by the differences in their financial situations. Well, he wasn’t going to know unless she told him, so she would. “Here’s where we have nothing in common. I grew up in a small town, Harte’s Harbor. My dad died when I was a kid and my mom raised us. There was never enough money.”

“It doesn’t seem as if that held either of you back.”

“We helped out. I learned to sew, too, and we both know how to make do.”

“That’s how you got into thrifting.”

“I apprenticed with the high mistress herself,” Shannyn admitted and Tyler chuckled. “My mom has amazing thrifting powers. And it works. A lot of times, we’d make a find, fix it, sell it, and fill a gap.”

“It’s really practical. You’re converting me.” Ty gave her a little smile filled with approval that sent fire right to her toes.

“But you’re a reluctant convert.”

He laughed. “Does it matter? I’m really curious about seeing what you’ve done with that furniture.”

“You’ll be blown away.”

Again, Ty gave her a warm smile and this time, his voice dropped low. “I have no doubt.”

Shannyn felt a little flustered. She looked down at her soup and tried to get the conversation back on track. “It was a family goal to send me to college. We scraped and scrimped and I made it, just barely, with a scholarship added into the mix.”

“And Aidan?”

“He signed up instead. He did a tour in Afghanistan that he never talks about.”

“But that’s not why he was away.”

“No. That was years ago.”

“What does he do now?”

Shannyn smiled, knowing that this would floor Tyler, the man who always had a plan. “He wanders. One of his buddies from the service lived in Idaho and another in California, which was the reason he bought a Land Rover after he got home, then drove across America. In California, he decided to go south instead of east. He drove to Tierra del Fuego, down the west side of both continents and back up the east side. He was gone a year and a half.”

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