Page 7 of More Than Words
I dropped the bag on the counter and started to unpack it while Quinn grabbed plates.As I reached for the ketchup and mayo, something on the kitchen table caught my eye.A dog-eared paperback with a cracked spine and dragons on the cover.
“What’s that?”
My daughter glanced over her shoulder.“Please tell me you’ve seen a book before, Dad.”
“Smart-ass,” I muttered.“It doesn’t look like a school book.Where did you get it?”
“The bookstore,” she deadpanned.“You know, the store where they sellbooks.”
“Attitude.”I gave her a warning glance.My daughter was sassy and smart, but that sass could tread dangerously close to attitude from time to time if she wasn’t careful.
“The bookstore lady let me borrow it.”
“Delaney?”I turned back toward the food, but the image of my neighbor in the plaza flashed through my mind.Big, green eyes.Calm voice that only barely hid a spark of fire beneath her quiet, controlled exterior when she’d shown up in my construction zone with that polite, but no-nonsense tone.She’d looked like she wanted to murder me…nicely.
“She’s cool,” Quinn said, sinking into her seat at the table with her plate of greasy food.
A familiar shot of guilt hit me.It was the third time this week I’d picked up burgers and fries from the Shed.I really needed to get better at preparing healthy meals, or at least, grabbing something different.
I made a mental note to place an order from Willa’s Whisk, across the plaza, next time to add some variety to our diet.
“Oh yeah?”I tried to sound casual, but Quinn shot me a look, letting me know it wasn’t working.
“Yeah.”She squirted a dollop of ketchup on her plate before adding mayo to the pile.“She lets me hang out and read.She doesn’t hover or act weird like most adults.She gets it.”
I wasn’t sure what exactly shegot.But I didn’t think it was wise to ask.
Quinn swirled a fry through her mayo and ketchup concoction.I reached for the bottles, making my own mixture of dip, just the way we both liked.But my thoughts didn’t move on from Delaney as quickly as they should have.I didn’t usually think twice about women I met around town, especially not attractive women who got under my skin in an unfamiliar way.
That was a rule I didn’t break.
Ever.
But there was something about her.
Maybe it was the way she tried not to look rattled when she came over, when she was clearly uncomfortable.Or the way she worked to make a deal for some kids’ reading hour.
Or maybe it was the way my daughter clearly thought she wascool.And had lent Quinn a book?
Delaneywascool.She hadn’t been trying to impress me or flirt her way through our conversation the other day.She’d just been…real.It was refreshing.Different from what I was used to.
I shook off my thoughts and reached for a fry.“Just don’t take anything without asking, okay?Borrowing is fine, but?—”
“Dad,” Quinn stopped me.“Relax.She offered.It’s fine.”
I snorted.But I knew it was.Quinn was a good kid, and she liked to read.There were a whole lot of worse things she could be doing at her age.
And I was certainly glad she wasn’t doing any of them.
We ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but my mind kept circling back to the woman next door and the fact that, despite how busy I was with the brewery, and balancing that with fatherhood and…well, life…there was something about Delaney I couldn’t get out of my head.And that was not good.Not even a little bit.
Quinn crunched into another fry as her phone lit up and binged with an incoming message.
“No phones at the table,” I said, but she’d already reached for the device.
Her face clouded over as she read the message.
Forgetting my own rule, I asked, “Everything okay?”
