“You live in Crescent,” he said.
“I what?” Caroline’s heart beat strangely in her chest the closer to her house Dawson drove. She wasn’t sure why, other than once he’d dropped her off here, he’d know whereshe lived.
Which was fine. She now knew where he lived.
He looked over to her, and it seemed several things had shifted by the simple act of driving out to the West End Fence and seeing all the animals there, even the ones that weren’t threatened.
“You live in the Crescent neighborhood,” he said. “See, all the old neighborhoods in Three Rivers, before the town started getting bigger, have names.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“We have some great history in Three Rivers,” he said, but he didn’t offer anything else. He didn’t volunteer to be her tour guide and then take her to dinner.
Just the fact that she wanted him to do that made a pinch of unrest settle between her ribs. Something foamed between her and Dawson, and he’d have to be a robot not to feel it.Surelyhe’d felt the electric buzz when he’d held her hand, even if it was only to steady her as she stood after loving on his dog.
In fact, he didn’t say another thing until she said, “It’s that red brick one on the left,” to which he murmured, “Okay.”
A few seconds later, he turned into her driveway and parked behind her SUV, which meant Belle and Judy were back from the fundraising breakfast. Of course they were. Caroline had been gone for hours.
She exhaled as she turned toward him, nothing to collect and take with her. No purse. No keys. Just her phone and herself. “Thanks for breakfast, Dawson.” Hisolder brother called him “Daws,” but Caroline wasn’t going to do that. “You make the hash browns just how I like them.” She gave him a tentative smile she hoped would earn her a real date with this man, but he simply nodded in a very grumpy cowboy way, no twitching upward movement of his lips at all.
She wasn’t sure if he was going to say anything, so she turned and opened her door. She used the runner on his tall truck to guide her feet to the ground and added, “See ya,” as she hurried to close the door.
She turned and walked up the sidewalk, cursing herself and pressing her eyes closed for a step or two as the wordsSee yaran through her head.
Caroline scoffed. “See ya? Who says that?” She wasn’t twelve and making a left on her bike while her friend went right after a lazy morning of fishing.
The curtains fluttered, which meant Belle had spotted her already, and Caroline would have to tell the whole story of that morning. She wished she had a more exciting ending—like a dinner date with Dawson tomorrow night—but at least the morning hadn’t been a disaster.
Chapter Five
Dawson sat there and watched Caroline walk away from him. She had to be adding an extra sway to her step, because she hadn’t walked like that as they’d gone toward the owls. Or maybe she just walked in this sexy way when she had perfectly even ground beneath her feet.
Either way, she was dangerously close to being swallowed by her house, and Dawson wouldn’t see her anymore. Panic darted through him, because he didn’t know when he’d see her again at all.
Without thinking, he jumped out of the truck, calling, “Caroline?”
She turned back to him as he rounded the hood of the truck in a jog, and he chastised himself. He didn’t need to be an overeager puppy, or like Rocks, showing up with something shiny every time she left the house.
“Yeah?”
Dawson’s hands felt like bricks attached to the end of his arms. His throat had turned to dust, and he coughed to clear the way for the words he wanted to say. “Uh, I was wondering…what are the next steps for the owl thing?”
She came toward him a couple of steps and stopped, once again becoming an angel in the midday light. “I already emailed you the paperwork. I’d look over that, and I’ll bring out the fencing supplies and other things you need to protect the area.”
She’d said all of this already, and Dawson hadn’t been too blinded by rage to not hear her. He nodded and looked away. “That wasn’t really what I was wondering.”
She cocked her hip and then her head in the opposite direction, making her body into a slight S he found so attractive. “What are you wondering?”
“How busy are the owls making you?” He shifted his feet and focused on her again, trying to push down his nerves. He’d asked out women before, and he told himself he could do it again. “Maybe if you’re not too busy with the owls or your sister moving in.” He gestured toward the house, which sat in the mid-day silence. “We could go to dinner sometime.”
Sometimewas not good enough for him, but he didn’t want to push for tomorrow or anything.
Caroline watched him, those pretty pink lips turning up into a smile. She laughed and ducked herhead, and when she raised it again, she said, “All right.”
Dawson’s own grin finally burst onto his face. “All right.”
She moved over to him, something stern entering her expression. “I have one condition.”
