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free.” Her soft voice whispered between them. “Luckily, it came out perfectly. And I got several referrals.”
He slid a little closer. “That’s good.”
She slid away. “That was last year. My trial and error year. This year I have enough referrals and know enough that I was comfortable quitting my job, doing this fulltime.”
He nodded, slid closer. He wouldn’t be such an idiot that he’d seduce her tonight, but he did want a kiss.
But she scooted farther away from him. “You’re not getting what I’m telling you.”
He frowned. Her crisp, unyielding voice didn’t match the heat bubbling in his stomach right now.
Had he fantasized his way into missing part of the conversation?
“What are you telling me?”
“I was abandoned by my husband with three kids. We’ve been as close to dead broke as four people can be for four long years. It was almost a happy accident that the first bride asked me to bake her cake. Over the past year I’ve been building to this point where I had a whole summer of cakes to bake. A real income.”
She slid off the railing and walked away from him. “I like you. But I have three kids and a new business.”
His chest constricted. He’d definitely fantasized his way into missing something. He hadn’t heard anything even close to that in their conversation. But he heard it now. “And you don’t want a man around, screwing that up?”
She winced. “No. I don’t.”
The happy tingle in his blood died. He wasn’t mad at her. How could he be mad at her when what she said made so much sense?
But he wasn’t happy, either.
He collected the empty beer bottles and left.
THE NEXT MORNING, Owen blew through the kitchen and out the back door like a little boy on a mission, and Missy’s heart twisted. He was on his way to the sandbox, expecting to find Wyatt.
She squeezed her eyes shut in misery. The Wyatt she remembered from their high school days never would have hit on her the way he had the night before. Recalling the sweet, shy way he’d asked her to the graduation party, she shook her head. That Wyatt was gone. This Wyatt was a weird combination of the nice guy he had been, a guy who’d seen Owen’s plight and rescued him, and a new guy. Somebody she didn’t know at all.
Still, she knew men. She knew that when they didn’t get their own way they bolted or pouted or got angry. Wyatt wasn’t the kind to get angry the way her dad had gotten angry, but she’d bet her next cake referral that she’d ruined Owen’s chances for a companion today. Hell, she might have wrecked his chances for a companion all month. All because she didn’t want to be attracted to Wyatt McKenzie.
Well, that wasn’t precisely true. Being attracted to him was like a force of nature. He was gorgeous. She was normal. Any sane woman would automatically be attracted to him. Which was why she couldn’t let Wyatt kiss her. One really good kiss would have dissolved her into a puddle of need, and she didn’t want that. She wanted the security of knowing she could support her kids. She wouldn’t get that security if she lost focus. Or if she fell for a man before she was ready.
So she’d warned him off. And now Owen would suffer.
But when she lifted the kitchen curtain to peek outside, there in the sandbox was Wyatt McKenzie. His feet were bare. His flip-flops lay drunkenly in the grass. Worn jeans caressed his perfect butt and his T-shirt showed off wide shoulders.
She dropped the curtain with a groan. Why did he have to be so attractive?
Still, seeing him with her son revived her faith in him. Maybe he was more like the nice Wyatt she remembered?
Unfortunately, until he proved that, she believed it was better to keep her distance.
After retrieving her gum paste from the refrigerator, she broke it into manageable sections. Once she rolled each section, she put it through a pasta machine to make it even thinner. Then she placed the pieces on plastic mats and put them into the freezer for use on Friday, when she would begin making the flowers.
She peeked out the window again, and to her surprise, Owen and Wyatt were still in the sandbox.
Okay. He might not be the old shy Wyatt who’d stumbled over his words to ask her out. But he was still a good guy. She wouldn’t hold it against him that he’d made a pass at her. Actually, with that pass out of the way, maybe they could go back to being friends? And maybe she should take him a glass of fruit punch and make peace?
When Missy came out to the yard with a pitcher and glasses, Wyatt wasn’t sure what to do. He hadn’t worked out how he felt about her rebuffing him. Except that he couldn’t take it out on Owen.
She offered him a glass. “Fruit punch?”
She smiled tentatively, as if she didn’t know how to behave around him, either.
He took the glass. “Sure. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She turned away just as her two little girls came running outside. “Who wants juice?”
A chorus of “I do” billowed around him. He drank his fruit punch like a man in a desert and put his glass under the pitcher again when she filled the kids’ glasses.
Their gazes caught.
“Thirsty?”
“Very.”
“Well, I have lots of fruit punch. Drink your fill.”
But don’t kiss her.
As she poured punch into his glass, he took a long breath. He was happy. He liked Owen. He even found it amusing to hear the girls chatter about their dolls when they sat under the tree and played house. And he’d spent most of his life wanting a kiss from Missy Johnson and never getting one.
So, technically, this wasn’t new. This was normal.
Maybe he was just being a pain in the butt by being upset about it?
And maybe that was part of what he needed to learn before he returned home? That pushing for things he wanted sometimes made him a jerk.
Sheesh. He didn’t like the sound of that. But he had to admit that up until he’d lost Betsy, he’d gotten everything he wanted. His talent got him money. His money got him the company that made him the boss. Until Betsy cheated on him, then left him, then sued him, his life had been perfect. Maybe this time with Missy was life balancing the scales as it taught him to gracefully accept failure.
He didn’t stay for lunch, though she invited him to. Instead, he ate a dried-up cheese sandwich made from cheese in Gram’s freezer and bread he’d gotten at the 7-Eleven the day he’d bought the beer and champagne. When he was finished, he returned to his work of taking everything out of his grandmother’s closet, piling things on the bed. When that was full he shifted to stacking them on the floor beside the bed. With the closet empty, he stared at the stack in awe. How did a person get that much stuff in one closet?
One by one, he began going through the shoe boxes, which contained everything from old bath salts to old receipts. Around two o’clock, he heard the squeals of the kids’ laughter and decided he’d had enough of being inside. Ten minutes later, he and Owen were a Wiffle ball team against Lainie and Claire.
Around four, Missy came outside with hot dogs to grill for supper. He started the charcoal for her, but didn’t stay. If he wanted to get back his inner nice guy, to accept that she had a right to rebuff him, he would need some space to get accustomed to it.
Because that’s what a reasonable guy did. He accepted his limits.
Once