“Oh, hey Ror.” Hallie pulled the phone from her ear to make sure she’d dialed the right number. Elise’s name scrolled across the top of the screen. Why was her fiancé answering her phone? Had something happened? “Sorry, I thought you were my sister.”
“Ah, no bother at all,” Rory said. “She was in the other room when you rang, so she asked me to answer. I’ll fetch her for ya. You sound like you’re in need of some ear bendin’.”
It had taken a while for Hallie to get used to Rory’s Irish phrases, but she had no trouble understanding him now. “I could use a good chat.” She dropped onto her neatly made bed. “How’s work? Any new projects?”
“Yeh, it’s grand altogether. Right now, I’m finishin’ up a romance score for an independent flick due in a few weeks. That’s what’s takin’ up most of my time. Here she is.” A short, muffled conversation followed before Elise picked up the phone.
“What’s up, Hal?”
Hallie let out a squeaky moan.
“That doesn’t sound good,” her sister said through a chuckle. A door slid shut on Elise’s side of the line, and Hallie wondered if her sister had stepped outside.
Turning onto her stomach, she slid Foxie under her chest, resting her chin on the soft but worn fur. She needed the comfort the stuffy provided right now. “You know how I told you Tyler’s friend was coming over to work on my website?”
“Yeah. Was he able to fix the problem?”
“Oh, he fixed it,” Hallie confirmed. “And he offered to create a brand new one.”
“That’s nice of him.”
Hallie was anxious to unpack the events of the afternoon—and figure out why they bothered her so much—but first, she needed to catch her sister up to speed.
“I don’t get it. He was so stand-offish at first. Like he’d rather beanywhere else but helping me. Why would he go out of his way to do something like that?”
“This is the same guy from Ty’s wedding, right?” Elise asked.
Hallie nodded before realizing her sister couldn’t see it. Old habits died hard, and she still hadn’t adjusted to having these conversations over the phone instead of face-to-face. “Kendall called him broody, and I can totally see why. But then he started opening up, especially in the car the other day. He’s … I don’t know … not what I expected.” Warmth sped up her neck.
“Wait, why were you in the car with him?”
Hallie shrugged. Again with the nonverbal communication. Would she ever get used to having an entire country between them? “I was caught in the rain, and he drove by, so he gave me a ride home. It was kind of … nice.” Seriously, why couldn’t she stop blushing? People offered rides all the time.
“So, he’s a good guy,” Elise said.
“Yeah, he is.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s a problem?”
Hallie considered the question. Was it a problem? “I just can’t get a read on him. Even Tyler said he wouldn’t go out of his way to take on a project for free, and now that I’ve tried to do it myself, I know what a big deal it is. I mean, sure, it’s his job. He can probably build a website in his sleep. But after what I learned about him today, I doubt he has the time.”
“Oooooo, intriguing. Continue.”
“He has kids.”
She still couldn’t believe it. Of all the reasons Tyler would refuse to talk about Christian, or invite him to hang out with them, or take it upon himself to warn Hallie not to get involved … She’d never considered this as the reason why.
So what? Lots of people had kids. This shouldn’t be an earth-shattering discovery.
Then why are you making it one?
The question came out of nowhere. And she didn’t have an answer to it.
“Awww,” Elise gushed. “Are they cute?”
Did she not realize the big deal here? Hallie sat up, pulling Foxie onto her lap. “One of them is. The other one…” She cut off her assessment of Christian’s older daughter, refusing to speak ill of a child. Instead, she rubbed her shin. It no longer throbbed, but the bruise still hurt when her fingers traced the mark. “She seems like a handful.”
“What do you mean?” Elise asked.
