Page 29 of The Mr. Right Checklist

“Yeah, I guess.” She sighs, her disappointment palpable.

“What would you like to know?”

Her eyes light up. “Everything. I saw pictures on your bookshelves, so I know you fished when you were younger, but Jimmy’s looked more recent.”

“Were you snooping, sunshine?”

“Not intentionally. It just kind of happened, and I didn’t look at anything but a few pictures. I promise. Do you still fish?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I’m going fishing Saturday. We had a boat growing up, and some of my best memories are fishing with my family.”

“Where are you from? What are your parents like?”

“I grew up in Sunnyvale, which is about half an hour from here. My parents still live in the house I grew up in, and Jimmy lives a few blocks from them. My parents are steady, you know? My dad is a financial consultant, and my mom works part time as an assistant to a real estate agent. Growing up, they were always there for us, and they still are.”

“How often do you see them?”

I shrug. “A couple times a month if our schedules align.”

“If my parents were still alive, I’d visit them all the time.”

She glances behind us, and I follow her gaze to a framed photograph on a hutch of a man with black hair, bushy brows, dark, happy eyes, and weathered skin and a blond woman with a mile-wide smile and a deep dimple in her left cheek.

I put my hand on Destiny’s, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry. Are they your parents?”

“Yeah,” she says softly.

“They’re a nice-looking couple. Do you mind if I ask how you lost your mother?”

She shakes her head, and her eyes tear up, gutting me.

How did that happen so fast? “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t. These are happy tears.” She blinked them away. “I warned you it happens when I think of them sometimes, didn’t I?”

I can’t remember if she warned me or not, but if she did, it wouldn’t have prepared me anyway. I’m not sure anything could. I don’t like seeing tears in her eyes. “Would you rather not talk about it?”

“No, I like talking about them, and you should know the hard stuff since I’m meeting your family. As I told you, my mom was fearless. She could do and fix anything. My dad told me that when he moved to the States and got a job as a mechanic, she’d go down to his shop at night and on the weekends, and beg him to show her what he was doing. She loved tinkering and gardening, and she built these little wooden wheelbarrows that she’d plant flowers in. I was at school the day she died. She was in the backyard, and as best my dad could tell, she was searching through an old woodpile or cleaning it up, and she jostled a bees’ nest. She was stung thirty-seven times, and she went into anaphylactic shock. He found her when he came home to have lunch with her, which he did all the time. They didn’t even know she was allergic.” A tear slips down her cheek. “My father had me tested right away, and I’m not allergic. I’d give anything if she hadn’t been.”

My heart cracks open, and even though she told me so much about herself the other day, I feel like I’m seeing her for the first time. Not her personality or her enthusiasm, but the incredibly strong, positive woman who has been a falling star two times too many and has somehow managed to pick herself back up to not only tread on but to flourish and live out her dreams. I want to know more. I want to know everything about her, to understand how she overcame so much. I want to know all her secrets and fears.

I wipe her tears with the pads of my thumbs and take her hand between both of mine. “Your father must have been beside himself with grief. Don’t take this wrong, but you were so young, I’m glad he found her before you did.”

A pained smile curves her lips. “My dad said the same thing. But I wish I had gotten there first to save him from having that be his last memory of her.”

I wipe more of her tears. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a boundless heart?”

She shakes her head.

I feel something at my feet and glance beneath the table, surprised to see Molly lying with her paw over Clementine. I was so caught up in Destiny, I didn’t even notice they’d come downstairs. How did Destiny know they’d be good friends? I lift my gaze to her sweet hazel eyes and realize there must be a hint of magic in that boundless heart of hers.

I hold her hand a little tighter. “I think you do, sunshine, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Chapter Ten

DESTINY

“I don’t get why you’re so nervous,” Ruby says over video call the following Thursday evening as I pull on another dress option for my meeting with Arjun. “You’re great with people, and you’ve been working with Fletch every day. You said you did great when you practiced last night. I bet you could sell this guy on your business in your sleep.”