“I already did. I told her I liked her.”
Nate could almost hear the sarcastic slow applause that would’ve followed.
“I just don’t want to scare her off, okay?”
Right. Because the woman who mauled Nate with kisses the first time he met her and chased him down several states away obviously scared so easily.
Well. When Nate thought about it like that...
McKenna was in the middle of an animated discussion with the goat and two chickens when she finally spotted him. “Nate! There you are. I see they got the foundation poured for the glass cottage.” She pranced toward him, hiking her thumb to the slab of concrete now gracing the backyard, along with a few wheelbarrows, shovels, and other equipment.
“Yeah,” he said, sliding the door to the equipment shed closed, then brushing his hands off. “They said they’d be back sometime next week to finish the rest.”
“Did you ask about the furnace and chandelier your mom wants installed?”
“They said it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good.” She held out a paper sack to him with a smile. “Brought you something.”
He peeked inside the sack. Now he was the one smiling because a few days ago he’d mentioned in passing that powdered sugar donuts were his favorite. She’d remembered. “Thank you.”
“Might be a little stale by now. Sorry. Next time I’ll bring them back sooner.”
“Must’ve been some meeting this morning,” he said, crinkling the sack closed again. “Thought you’d be back hours ago.”
“So did I. But we ran into Lottie. She asked if I’d be the photographer for the Dominoes Dance.” McKenna’s nose wrinkled. “Asked might be too generous a word. But either way, I agreed, so I decided to scope out the venue. You know, for being such a small town, Bugle certainly isn’t lacking in character. I kept stumbling across so many great buildings and shots for my portfolio, I lost track of time.”
“Your portfolio. Right. For your dream job in LA.” Nate stepped over to the picnic bench where he’d left his bottle of water and phone. Tiny grass clippings clung to the sheen of sweat coating his arms. He needed a shower. But first, he needed more time with McKenna.
Did she feel the same connection he felt? After their talk last night, he couldn’t help thinking she did. But what about her dream of going to California? There was so much he still didn’t know about her. And so little time left to discover everything he wanted to know.
“So what is it about this job that makes it your dream job?” He lifted his water bottle for a long drink, glad for the shade from the nearby sycamore tree, then settled onto the same side of the picnic table where he’d sat last night for dinner.
McKenna waved off his offer to share one of his donuts, then slipped off her sandals and took a seat on top of the table, resting her bare feet next to where he sat. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called it my dream job. It’s not like I’ve always dreamed of moving to Los Angeles and working for a wedding photographer. But I do like the idea of doing weddings. My current boss won’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. And I love the idea of doing photo shoots of brides with their pets. That’s definitely something my current boss would never consider.”
“It sounds to me like you just need a different boss.” He cleaned his fingers off on his pants after already inhaling one of the donuts. He’d save the other for later.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said as she brushed her thumb across some powdered sugar he must’ve worn on his chin. “But at the same time, I owe my boss more than you can imagine. He offeredme a job when I had no idea how I was going to support Bobbi after our mom died.”
“How old were you when your mom passed?”
“Eighteen. Bobbi was ten.”
“And it was just the two of you?” He leaned his elbows back on the table.
McKenna nodded, her fingers now grazing over the slight bump from the wasp sting on the back of his arm before gripping the edge of the table. “If it hadn’t been for Mr. Sullivan stepping in, I’m not sure what we would have done. I was supposed to be heading off to college, not raising a ten-year-old sister. And despite my mother’s many wonderful qualities, she did have one major flaw, which I didn’t realize until after she was gone. The woman had no idea how to manage her finances.”
Nate looked at the freshly poured concrete, wondering if his own mom shared the same flaw. How was she planning to pay for all these additions and updates when her guest list continued diminishing? He’d thumbed through the check-in book last night, unable to ignore the sparse numbers this past year. Hopefully having some celebrity put on a concert would help turn that around, but Nate had his doubts.
“Eighteen,” Nate said, shaking his head that McKenna had carried a much heavier burden than this at a much younger age. “That had to have been such a stressful time. Sorry you had to go through that.”
“Thanks. It was. I thought for a while we were going to lose everything. I’m not exaggerating when I say Mr. Sullivan helped keep a roof over our heads, especially that first year. Which is why part of me feels bad, like I’m betraying him somehow, for wanting to take a job with a different photographer now.”
“If he’s a good man who really cares about you, I don’t think he’ll see it that way.” Nate glanced up, squinting at the flashes of sunlight sneaking through the branches and providing a backlight to McKenna’s face framed by her riot of curls.
“What?” he said when she continued staring back at him like she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure whether to say it.
She continued chewing on her bottom lip and twisted her face away. “Nothing.”
