Shrugging as if he had no clue. Knowing it was because his relationship with her felt like it was going too well. Also, this was date three. No one had made it to date three before. What if three was his new limit?
Which he totally wasn’t going to admit to her.
“Last night…when I drove out here, it wasn’t just the past I was running from,” she said.
He glanced over at her. Ava had a way of intuiting what he was feeling. He both liked and hated that.
“I get it. I’m definitely one foot in my past and one foot right here in the present. I’m totally aware that I could be fucking you and me up. But I can’t seem to get around it.”
She stood up, putting one hand on her hip. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
“So you’re feeling stalked…” He got it. A bit slower than he normally was, because all these emotions swirling around him like a heavy fog made it hard for him to really see clearly.
“Do you think if you let me and Gracie in, someone will come and take it away?” he asked.
“I don’t think it, but I’ve been fine for years, and then as soon as I start dating you and fostering Gracie, my mind is all on high alert. Looking for someone watching me, waiting to take my security and happiness away again,” she said, rubbing her hands on her arms.
He put the axe down on the stump, went over to her and hauled her up against him. “They’ll have to go through me.”
Her arms went around his waist. “Thanks.”
“Only Grandmother has stayed. And part of that had to be obligation, you know?”
She pulled back and shook her head at him. “You’re entitled to your feelings, but never say that to your grandmother. She’ll be hurt. She loves you. She raised you because she wanted to. We both know there were other options for her. You matter to her. You matter to me, too.”
She had a point, but it was easier to say it was obligation than to have to face the fact that if his grandmother loved him for who he was…than his mother must have never loved him. It was complex and hard to unravel. So much of those feelings were tied to who he’d been at six. Not the man he was today.
“Thanks for that. I’ve never been on more than three dates with a woman. You matter to me. I don’t want to let you down.”
“You haven’t.”
“Come on in, you two. Gracie just said Mama,” Grandmother called from the door of his house.
Taking Ava’s hand in his, they hurried to the house. Even though he promised himself he’d only be Gracie’s uncle, he was prouder than any father could be at her words. That girl had a lot to say…not unlike her foster mother.
In his heart, though, he already saw Ava as her mother. How were either of them going to move on once Gracie was placed in her forever home?
For the first time, he actually admitted to himself that he might want more than just being Ava’s boyfriend and Gracie’s uncle. He might want it all.
Chapter 13
Dropping by the firehouse wasn’t a great idea, but Ryan was dodging her calls. Probably because she’d sent a text sayinglet’s talk. What had she been thinking? She’d thought about using their daily Snapchat streak to do it, but that wasn’t right. Snapchat was for fun.
She’d left Gracie at day care and run over on her lunch break. His truck was in the parking lot, so she knew he was there. She was tempted to text him they needed to talk about their parents because that would get him to text back, but that just felt mean.
Grabbing the strawberry muffins she’d picked up before coming over, she hopped out of her truck.
She clocked the moment he noticed her. His back stiffened and he said something to the guys before coming to meet her outside the station.
“What are you doing here?”
“You’re ignoring me,” she said.
She handed him the box of muffins.
“‘We need to talk’…you’re not Mom, Ava.”
“Duh. I had a session with Fern yesterday, and she mentioned you’d been stopping by to visit her.”
