Second Time's the Charm

She squeezed his fingers, let go of the plastic and pulled free from him, running her right hand along the side of his face as she stood.

A brush-off. His emotions froze, sliding quickly and quietly back inside whatever hole they’d sprung from.

Packing up the rest of his tools, he turned around, facing the kitchen where he’d heard the refrigerator open and close, a drawer open and close, the sink go on and off.

“I hope that you won’t let this get in the way of our arrangement,” he said forthrightly because that was the only way he knew how to do things. “Abe needs you. And I can’t accept your help without paying my way.”

The shock on her face as she looked up confused the hell out of him. “I thought you were staying for dinner.”

Jon, never more unsure in his life, set the bucket of tools down at his feet. “I was,” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “And then I kissed you.”

She nodded. Expressions chased across her face, and he wasn’t sure what any of them meant. “One kiss scared you off?” she finally said with a chuckle that sounded slightly forced.

The woman was an enigma. And he was drawn to her, compellingly so, in spite of all of the reasons why he shouldn’t be. He had no proof that she wasn’t working for Clara.

He needed her help.

She’d already indicated, the night they went out for burgers, that she didn’t want an intimate relationship with him. And he had no time, or energy, for an intimate relationship.

At least that was what he’d been telling himself over the past two years, that he’d been celibate by choice. And Lillie was definitely not the type of woman a guy took for a one-night stand. Not that he’d been into that, ever. And most definitely wasn’t now that he had an impressionable boy in his life.

Had the one kiss scared him off?

“No, the kiss didn’t scare me.” He took his time to answer, trying to figure out where he stood with her. “I assumed that I offended you.”

Turning back to her salad, she chuckled again. More naturally. But still with little humor. “No, Jon, offending me isn’t the problem.”

So there was a problem. He’d been right.

“What is?”

“I’m too embarrassed to tell you.” Her hands moved quickly, shredding, mixing and chopping. All without missing a beat.

Her head was bent over her task. Hiding her face.

“We’re friends. You don’t need to be embarrassed.”

The assurance earned him a shake of her head. So maybe they weren’t friends now? Or being friends wasn’t enough to grant him access to her personal business.

“You witnessed me standing in a room full of gawking women while my son screamed bloody murder, indicating to everyone there that I had no control over him.” He said the first thing that came to his mind. “It doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that.”

“No one was thinking that you couldn’t control your son. Only that he was experiencing acute distress. You actually had him under control. He wasn’t hitting and kicking and pushing you away or running around throwing magazines all over the floor.”

Jon stared at her. “You’ve witnessed that?”

“More than once. Some kids panic when they’re faced with a medical procedure that frightens them. They lash out. Sometimes uncontrollably.”

Amazing. She always had a way to make him feel like a winner.

She was chopping a cooked steak into small pieces with her delicate hands. And he found himself turned on once again.

“You still haven’t told me why you were embarrassed,” he said. Things had to be set straight between them or he couldn’t stay.

“And your example was not a personal embarrassment.”

He’d damn sure felt personally embarrassed. “What was it, then?”

“A public one.”