Page 31 of The Scars I Bare
“Wouldn’t even dream of it,” I agreed.
“And you’ll feed her?”
“Best food in town,” I promised.
“And bring her back before we close?”
I nodded. “With bells on.”
“Bells!” Lizzie cheered, her voice breaking into laughter.
“Fine,” she agreed but took one step closer toward me.
I could feel her breath on my neck and smell the floral fragrance of her shampoo, and if I bent forward even an inch, I’d know exactly what her skin tasted like.
“Eyes forward, Sutherland,” she barked, jolting me out of the lust-filled haze I’d momentarily stumbled into.
I looked down at her, seeing the seriousness in her eyes. I took a tiny step back, hoping it would help me focus.
“That right there is the most important thing to me in this whole damn world.” Her finger went up to my chest as she tried to find more words to drive in the significance of what I was doing.
“I’ll treat her like the treasure that she is, Cora. I promise.”
Our eyes met, and once again, I tried to ignore the tightening in my chest and the yearning deep in my belly.
Because, as much as Molly wanted to believe, this was not a love story.
No fireworks, no happy endings.
Just one nice person doing a favor for another.
Period.
“So, what’ll it be?” I asked after nearly collapsing into the chair at the local restaurant I’d picked out for lunch.
Lizzie was a ball of never-ending energy, asking questions with every glance, about everything from street signs and local life to types of animals, and even giving her own fun facts along the way.
And, in the few hours we’d spent together, I’d grown pretty fond of the spunky little girl. Even if I did want to fall over from sheer exhaustion at the moment.
“Chicken fingers!” she announced after looking over the menu with a bit of scrutiny.
It didn’t surprise me one bit that she could read the thing. Considering she was looking up random facts on birds on the internet, a simple kid’s menu was a no-brainer.
It did make me wonder how she was going to fare in kindergarten though.
Or rather, how the school was going to fare with her.
“Chicken fingers?” I scoffed. “Out of everything this place has to offer, you’re going to choose chicken fingers?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like fish.”
“You were born in a beach town. How can you not like fish?” I joked, recalling I, myself, hated the taste of anything sea-related until the age of twelve, and I was the son of a fisherman.
She shrugged again, this time even bigger, her shoulders nearly reaching the bottoms of her ears. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”
“Hmm,” I said, making an exaggerated face, like I was trying to think of a solution. “Well, what if I said you could eat with your fingers? Would that change your mind?”
She slightly perked up. “Maybe. All the other fish I had was slimy.”
