Page 67 of Moonlit Temptation
After he pulled into my driveway and carefully helped me off his bike, he waited until I went inside and shut the door before he left.
And I'm having a hard time reconciling that almost gentlemanly gesture with the gruff way he spoke. It piqued my curiosity, I suppose.
Not that I need to becuriousabout another man.
My silent phone burns a hole in my back pocket. But I resolved to wait for Nova to text me, so that's what I'm going to do. And if he never does, well, then, I'll just move on.
“Thank you so much, Dixie. I'm so glad you could get me in and fix it so quickly.”
I look around the little office as I tuck the receipt into my back pocket. It wasn't nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, but I'm not complaining.
I note the almost coastal vibe of her office, something I wouldn't have necessarily thought of for an auto shop.
Pale blue-gray walls, rattan basket with a lid in the corner, a sand-colored vase with dried sea grass on the little shelf along the back wall. A glass jar less than halfway full of seashells sits next to her computer monitor on her desk.
“You like sea-shelling?” I ask, glancing out the front window to see if they've pulled my car around yet.
“Oh these?” she asks, picking up the vase I was looking at. She smiles at it like she's reliving a memory. “My grandson likes to collect them from the Paddock beach. He used to line them up along the edge of my desk, but they kept falling off and breaking. So we got this vase, and now, everyone is happy.”
“That's sweet. How old is he?”
She sets the vase back down on her desk and flashes me a smile. There's a little twinkle in her eye that wasn't there before. “Five going on fifteen, I swear. We spend a lot of time together. I know I'm biased because I'm his grandma, but he's the best child.”
I chuckle. “I'm pretty sure Nana Jo used to say that about me.”
“She did, you know.”
I cut her a look for a second, before it smooths out into a small grin. “I keep forgetting that Rosewood is a small town.”
She nods. “Aye, it is. But Josephine's grandbabies were her pride and joy. We went to the same nail tech, got to know each other over the years. And I didn't want to say anything the other day in front of Coraline, but your grandma talked differently about you.”
My chest aches but in a good kind of way. Like the way your body aches after an intense workout, but you know something good is going to come from it.
I take a step closer to her. “She did?”
Dixie nods slowly, a soft smile on her lips. “She talked about you like you hung the moon. Said you were always the leader of her troop of grandkids, despite you being the youngest.”
I feel tears prickling the corners of my eyes and I blink them back. Grief hits me in the strangest ways sometimes.
“My cousin Abby is younger than me by a couple weeks,” I mumble after I clear my throat a little.
“She always thought you'd end up working with kids. Said you had a way with them, kindness when others didn't. She was real proud of you, honey.”
I smile, blinking away the moisture in my eyes. “Thank you for saying that, Dixie. It means a lot to me.”
She reaches over and pats my hand. “Of course. Life has a way of taking us down unexpected paths, doesn't it?”
I nod, feeling a little emotional. “It sure does.”
She withdraws her hand and scoots around the desk. “Let me go check on what's taking them long. Can you do me a favor and just keep an eye on my grandson?”
I pull back and look around the small office. “What? He's here?”
She jerks her head toward the glass door to the right. “He's in there while his daddy is busy in a meeting. It was another office that sat collecting dust, so when Hunter was born, I had the boys convert it into a safe place for him to be when I'm here.”
“I bet he loves it.”
“The guys sneak him vending machine snacks when I'm not looking, he gets to watch practically any movie he wants, and he has a whole bin of toys.” She says it all like she was saying duh.
