“Let’s start with the easy stuff. Favorite color?”
“Whoa, there,” I teased. “That’s a little personal.”
Jim chuckled. It was a nice sound. “My favorite color is Hibs green.”
“I don’t know what color that is.”
“Hibernian green. Hibs are an Edinburgh football team. Soccer.”
“I don’t know a lot about soccer. My dad is a huge Colts fan, though.”
“I love American football.”
“Really?” I was surprised. “I thought you guys had rugby?”
“We do … but American football is more exciting to me. Don’t get me wrong, rugby’s hardcore. But your football is so strategic. My sister hates sports but even she will sit and watch an NFL game. I’m a Patriots fan.”
“Shhh,” I teased, glancing around us. “Don’t say that too loudly around here.”
Jim grinned. “I won’t.” He tugged playfully on my ponytail. “Tell me something else about ye. What’s yer favorite song?”
Instantly, a memory of my dad and a few guys on his crew jamming to Bon Jovi flitted through my mind, causing a wave of nostalgia and an ache in my chest. I was ten, and Cory Trent, for some reason I’d yet to discover, had told everyone in our class that my mom had told his mom I wet the bed. Which was a total lie. I had my best friend’s mom drop me off at the house Dad was fixing up a mile from our own. It was unusual for him to get work in town—his crew was usually booked out somewhere else in the county. I’d thanked God for him being so close that day because I’d been devastated by everyone treating me like a pariah at school.
He’d emerged from the house when one of the guys called out to let him know I was there. As soon as I saw him I burst into tears, and he swept me up into his arms. After I told him what had happened, he was really mad at Cory. Then Dan, his foreman, had turned up the radio and a few of the guys and my dad cheered me up by doing an awful impression of Bon Jovi.
I’d known then I had the best dad in the world.
Which made it worse that I’d lost him not long after that.
“‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’”
At his silence, I sneaked a peek at Jim—he was shaking with laughter. I narrowed my eyes. “Okay, I’m not answering any more questions if you’re going to mock me.”
“No, no!” He laughed, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting Bon Jovi.”
“Oh? What’s your favorite song, cool guy?”
“‘All These Things That I’ve Done,’ by the Killers.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Okay. That is cool.”
The bench shook as he laughed again and suddenly, he reached up to take hold of an arm of my sunglasses. He gently pushed them up and settled them on top of my head so he could see my eyes. “You are so adorable.”
It was a compliment I’d heard before, and in the past, it had bugged me. I was only five three and, although in the last couple of years I’d finally developed curves, I was petite. I had large dark eyes with really long lashes that made them look even bigger. Whenever anyone described me, it was as “cute” or “adorable.” I didn’t want to be cute or adorable. I wanted to be more.
But Jim made “adorable” sound like more. I blushed. “I’m not really.”
“You are,” he insisted.
I peeked at him again and blushed harder under his intense scrutiny. “You’re looking at me.”
“Aye. It’s hard not tae.”
I squirmed, not sure how to respond. I’d never been in a position where I was supposed to flirt back. “Are all Scottish guys as flirty as you?”
Jim shrugged. “I didn’t think I was being flirty. I was just saying what I was thinking.”
“Obviously, it’s one and the same when it comes to you,” I teased.
He slid closer to me, and I sucked in a breath, feeling nervous butterflies wake in my belly at his nearness. “Favorite movie?”
Realizing he wasn’t going in for a kiss, I didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved. “I don’t know … Moulin Rouge.”
“Another surprise.” He raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen it, but it’s not what I would have guessed.”
“What would you have guessed?”
“Actually, I have no idea.” He grinned. “My favorite movie is Red.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen that.”
“It’s fucking hilario—shit, sorry.” His cheeks flushed. “I’m trying no’ tae swear around ye.”
Making an effort to be a gentleman was sweet—very sweet—but I also wanted Jim to be himself. The red in his cheeks gave him a vulnerability I hadn’t expected, and I realized that maybe underneath the bravado, I made him nervous too. The thought was a little exhilarating. “You said you work construction?”
He nodded.
“I’ll bet you curse a lot, huh? My dad used to own a construction company. As much as he tried not to, he cursed all the time. So did his crew. It doesn’t bother me. Sometimes…” I dropped my voice an octave, “I even curse. The horror.”
He pushed me playfully. “So much for trying to be a gentleman.”
I grinned. “Just be you.” And before he could start asking me questions I wasn’t sure I was ready to answer, I said, “Why did you and Roddy come to Donovan of all places?”
Jim stared at me, as if trying to decide something. Finally, he relaxed against the bench and turned to look out at the lake. His attention to it brought mine to the fact there was a man and two little boys in a boat, laughing and carrying on as they rowed past. I hadn’t even been aware of the noise I was so lost in our conversation.
“My dad,” Jim suddenly said. “His name was Donovan.”
I sensed like I had before, that it was hard for Jim to talk about him. “You don’t have to …”
He glanced back at me. “Roddy avoids the topic completely. Mum starts crying if I mention him. And the truth is talking about him to people who knew him is hard.”
Compassion for this boy engulfed me, and I smashed through my usual reserve and placed a hand on his knee in comfort. He looked down at it, seeming surprised and more than a little lost.
“Sometimes…” I heaved a sigh around the sudden constriction in my chest, “it’s easier to talk about it with someone who didn’t know him or love him because you don’t have to worry or deal with their grief, just your own. You can talk about him without having to think about how it’ll affect the person you’re talking to.” I lifted my hand off his knee but turned to face him, my left knee almost touching his hip. “You can talk to me about him. If you’d like …”
Jim seemed half unsure, half in wonder. “It’s a little heavy for a first date.”
“This is a date?”
“Aye, it’s a date.”
I laughed at his insistent tone. “Then I guess we get to decide how we want that date to go. I’m a really good listener, Jim. But we don’t have to talk.”
He raised an eyebrow, a smirk curling the corners of his lips, and I shoved him for his indecent thoughts. “You know what I meant. God,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. “Men.”
His laughter settled and he shimmied closer to me on the bench, so my knee was touching his hip. Seriousness came down over his gaze like a theater curtain, slow and steady, as he studied what felt like the entirety of my face. Before he lowered his eyes to my hair, I realized we had almost the same color of eyes. Almost black in low lighting but when the sun captured them, they glowed warmer, like dark mahogany.
Jim curled a finger around a strand in my ponytail and played with it as he began to talk. “My dad’s mum was Irish, my grandfather Scottish, and as my dad would tell it, they were both fiercely proud of their heritage. They passed away when I was four. Car crash.” His eyes flicked to mine for a second, as if to check my reaction, before they drifted back to watching his fingers play with my hair. “When my dad was born, my grandad suggested to my gran that they call him Donovan McAlister. Donovan was my gran’s maiden name.