Page 23 of Just a Heartbeat Away

And that’s how Sebastian found himself with a psychic in the front seat of his truck. Matty and Via sat strapped into the back seat, Matty in a booster, of course, and Crabby passed out, belly-up, on the floor. He put the truck in Reverse, then slammed it back into Park when he saw a guy struggling with a stroller in the parking lot. “Be right back.”

Sebastian recognized him as one of the two other guys on the team. He jogged over.

“Hey, man. You’re Giles, right?”

The slightly skinny man looked up from where he crouched, his eyes catching on Seb’s face for a second. “That’s right. And you’re Sebastian?”

He was British, apparently, something that Seb hadn’t noticed in their first introduction earlier that morning.

“Yeah. Can I give you a hand with the stroller? I used to have the same one for my son.”

Giles rose up and nodded, stepping away. “My husband took our daughter to the bathroom, and my job was to get the stroller into the car. It’s a little emasculating to fail so epically at theeasiertask.”

Seb scoffed. “Trust me. There’s nothing easy about this monstrosity. Here, you put your foot here and really jam down at the same time you rip back on this handle. I think of it like I’m starting a chainsaw. You try.”

“Ahhhh,” Giles muttered as he followed Seb’s directions and the stroller folded down. “Brilliant.”

“When in doubt, just kick the hell out of it. Or buy a new stroller.”

Giles chuffed out a laugh. “Ah, here’s my husband. Look, hon, I folded the stroller!”

Seb grinned at the satisfied look on his new friend’s face. Giles’s husband strolled up, a little girl, maybe two years old, on his hip. She glared out from under a mop of red hair, much like the hair of the man who held her.

“Sebastian, this is my husband, Benjamin.”

“Sebastian Dorner.” Seb shook hands with Benjamin and leaned in just a little to the sulky little girl. “And what’s your name, beautiful?”

The little girl said nothing, choosing instead to pull an even more sour face in Seb’s direction.

“Her name is Clara. And contrary to popular belief, she does speak. Are you Sebastian Dorner, the furniture maker?” Benjamin asked.

Seb looked up in surprise. “Yeah.”

“Oh my gosh! I’m thrilled to meet you. I’ve been lusting after your website for months. You made a bookcase for some friends of ours. The Littlefields.”

“Oh sure.” Sebastian nodded. “They’re nice people. Fun to work with.”

“Are you taking on clients right now?”

“Always.” Seb reached for his wallet and then remembered he was wearing athletic pants. “Let me grab you a business card from the truck.”

“No worries, I’ll reach out to you through your website.”

“Great. Look, I’ve gotta run, but I’ll see you next week?” The words were out of Sebastian’s mouth before he thought twice about it. Somehow, between watching Via round the bases like a cheetah and chatting with these nice people in the parking lot, Seb had decided to come back.

“Sounds good, nice to meet you!”

Seb toggled his fingers at Clara, earning an imperious, affronted look from the little girl, and grinned at the two dads. He turned and jogged back to the car.

“Everything all right?” Via asked from the back seat. Seb saw that Matty had talked one of the two ladies into unwrapping a granola bar and handing him his water bottle.

“Yup, I just feel an obligation to pass on hard-won stroller knowledge to other dads. Plus, I think I landed myself an interested client.”

“Knuckles, Daddy.”

Sebastian grinned as he reached back and pounded fists with his six-year-old.

“Via tells me you’re an artist,” Serafine said from the front seat. They’d met briefly outside his truck, and Sebastian felt a little skip of his heart when she spoke to him now. She definitely had some strange energy coming off of her. Maybe it was her ethereal river of dark hair or those eerie eyes. Or maybe it was the fact that she was painfully gorgeous, fierce and beautiful like a goddess, or a pirate queen. But either way, Seb was having trouble looking her in the face for any length of time.

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