Page 80 of Isolated
I licked my lips and batted my eyelashes. “I wanted to set the mood.”
Laughter spilled out of him. “You do that without a single flower, sunshine.”
“I have a question.”
“Yeah? What is it?”
Hesitating for just a moment, I searched his face. “You don’t have any kids you haven’t told me about, do you?”
He jerked back, looking both surprised and amused. “No. What would make you ask that?”
I tipped my head toward the house. “The lasagna is almost done. I’ll tell you inside.”
With that, Landen lifted me off the ground again. This time, I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me back inside.
What I didn’t know was that Walter was watching us the entire time.
TWENTY-THREE
Landen
“Are you home?”
Without hesitation, a response came through the line from a voice of comfort. “Yes.”
“Would it be alright if I stopped over?”
This time, there was a pause. And when the voice came through the line again, it was unsteady. “Of course. You never have to ask.”
“I’ll be there shortly.”
After saying goodbye, I disconnected the call, turned on the engine, and pulled out of the lot.
It was late Friday afternoon, and I’d left work early for the day. For the weekend. And I thought this was the perfect time to take care of something that I’d been putting off for too long.
Not quite fifteen minutes after I’d ended my call, I’d arrived at my destination. I’d just barely made it to thefront door when it was flung open, and I was staring into a face filled with alarm. “Is everything okay?”
My mom.
My poor mom.
I should have offered her some reassurances when I called and asked to stop by. No doubt she’d spent every second since we’d ended our call presuming the absolute worst had happened.
It wasn’t that I didn’t ever come over to visit with my mom. I did. The problem was that I didn’t often just call her on a Friday afternoon, asking to make that visit immediately.
“Landen,” she breathed. “Are you okay? Is everything alright? Please tell me that nothing bad happened?”
Her worried and frantic eyes roamed over me from head to toe and back again, searching for any sign of injury or ailment.
I reached my hands out and braced them on her arms as I stepped forward into the house. “Relax, Mom. I’m fine. Nothing bad happened. Unless…”
“Unless what?” She tensed right up again.
My hands moved up and down her arms to comfort and relax her. “I was just going to say that this visit here is only going to be bad if you’ve already taken the steps to set me up on a blind date with someone from church, or anywhere else, for that matter.”
Some of the rigidity eased out of her frame. “Well, I’ve been trying, but I haven’t quite found anyone suitable just yet. Why are you telling me this? What’s going on?”
I grinned at her. “I met someone.”
