He spoke through clenched teeth, and she took a moment to consider his words. Did he think she wasinterestedin William? Sure, he was even cuter in person, his hair sandy and tousled, his jaw covered in the golden glint of a beard. But he didn’t do a damn thing for her.
“Hey, I’m not—” she began, but a call from farther into the house cut her off.
“Grandpa Leo! Time to put the meat on the grill.”
Leo pushed himself off the door but didn’t meet her eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” she muttered as she followed him through the house.
As they moved through the living room, she tried not to pay too much attention to their surroundings—for some reason it felt intrusive to scour Leo’s living space for clues about the man he’d become—but the old-world Tuscan decorating scheme was too much to ignore.
“Gotta say, this isn’t how I pictured your house.”
The look he tossed over his shoulder as he pulled open the sliding door was incredulous. “This stuff isn’t mine.”You idiot, his tone implied.
He was clearly waiting for her to step through first, so she did.
“Then you’re going to have to explain how you ended up living in this part of town with furniture that even my grandmother would’ve rejected as a bit stuffy.”
His pained expression didn’t budge as he pulled the door shut and joined her on the stone patio where William stood in front of a massive grill built into a stone structure that looked more likely to withstand a tornado than her last house.
“I’m renting from a Digham engineer who’s working overseas for three years,” he said curtly. “She and her husband didn’t want to bother selling, then buying something new when they moved back, so I get cheap rent and they get somebody making sure their pipes don’t freeze.”
“Ahhhh.” That made so much more sense. “So those aren’t your wrought-iron rooster statues?”
William tossed his head back with a roar of laughter. “Does this poor girl not understand how you lived before you went corporate?”
She sat down on a patio chair, grateful she’d worn her favorite cardigan. It was getting chilly as the sun began to set and long shadows stretched across the backyard.
“Nope. Leo hasn’t shared many personal details,” she said. Or any details, really.
William adjusted a knob on the grill, then placed three massive steaks on to cook. “Weird. He’s usually so talkative.”
“A natural-born storyteller,” she agreed. “Just cannot get that guy to shut up once he starts sharing.”
Leo sighed and flipped a switch on the table in the center of a circle of patio chairs, and flames fired to life. “I cannot tell you how fun this is for me.”
“What, me and Faith ganging up on you?” William asked.
“Yes,” he grumbled, pulling his chair closer to the fire. The flames provided a blast of much-needed heat, and Faith followed suit as William grabbed a beer for each of them, passing them around before joining them around the low table.
“Since Leo isn’t chatty, let me tell you all about life at Protect Our Rainforests,” William said. “We’re headquartered in Iquitos, Peru. That’s where we run most of our community programs and stage our work trips. Picture the crappiest college dorm you’ve ever seen, and then add unstable Wi-Fi and a revolving roster of youthful volunteers with questionable hygiene and you’ve got the idea.”
“No log cabin?” Faith asked Leo.
He almost smiled. “Nope. Lots of tents though. During the dry months, we’d usually camp at our job sites so we could work uninterrupted.”
“We stayed in town during the rainy season,” William added. “Worked jobs in the nearby villages.”
“What kind of jobs?” Faith was almost embarrassed by how excited she was to learn more about Leo’s life while they’d been apart.
“Planting trees that the villagers can use for fruit or building materials,” Leo said. “Monitoring what we planted in years past to be sure they’re developing properly and helping the native wildlife thrive.”
William picked up the thread. “We ran educational programs and worked with the locals to build up their economies or stop logging and deforestation. We also had biologists and erosion specialists and that kind of thing consult for us,” he said. “Reggie coordinated our visiting experts before I handed over the reins to the whole operation.”
“Wow.” Such an underwhelming sentiment as she considered the organization and sweat that must’ve gone into every aspect of their jobs.
“I know we made it sound glamorous, but don’t forget the insects.” Leo rubbed his thumb along his unshaven jaw, his hair a tumble across his forehead. “You’ve never seen bugs that big.”
