Actually, on second thought, he wouldn’t even try to resist punching Gordon in the face.
“I’m fine,” Tiffani said. “Really. I had to spend a couple of minutes looking at the,” she lowered her voice, “hoofprints on my bedroom rug to convince myself that part hadn’t been a dream, that’s all. But they were there.”
“They vacuum out,” Martin reassured her.
She snorted. “That actually wasn’t at the top of my to-do list. Oh, and by the way, I got a giant bouquet from Theo with a very thoughtful card apologizing for not having told me about himself sooner. Handwritten, obviously. Hallmark hasn’t really cornered that particular market.”
Martin was cynical on the subject of Hallmark. “Yet.”
“Yet,” she agreed. “But to be honest, all of this does still seem like a dream. No matter what kind of marks were on my rug.”
“You seem like a dream to me too,” Martin said quietly.
“See?” She held up her arm. The blouse was short-sleeved this time. “You can see my hair standing on end when you say things like that. It’s spooky.”
He saw her eyes go down to his hands. He had taken his wedding ring off this morning. He’d had to work it off with soap and water, he had worn it so long.
Doing it had been hard and sad, but necessary, too. He had to acknowledge that he was moving from a lost old love to a new found one. He would keep his ring from Lisa forever, but he didn’t think it would be fair to Tiffani for him to keep wearing it.
He traced one finger down the length of her arm, elbow to wrist. He had to be careful around her or he would wind up getting taken away in cuffs for public indecency. He cleared his throat.
“Do you want to have lunch with me?”
“Actually,” Tiffani said, with a slight wince of apology, “I do, and I will, but... Jillian was very excited when I told her what was going on. So I think we’re going to have some company, if that’s okay. Jillian and Theo both.” She yawned and then shook her head. “I’m going to spend all of lunch doing that. It won’t shock you to know that I didn’t exactly get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Tonight will be better,” he promised. He offered her his arm. “Group lunch it is.”
She fitted herself against him.
Perfect match.
Chapter Twelve: Martin
It would have been hard to imagine anything more different from their quiet, intimate, flirtatious lunch the day before.
“I really am sorry about this,” Jillian said sometime after the second crayon had gone flying through the air.
Tiffani maneuvered the crayon out of her glass of iced tea using a spoon and one of the coffee-stirrers. “Honestly, sweetheart, don’t worry about it. This obviously wasn’t your plan. This obviously wouldn’t be anyone’s plan.”
She handed the crayon back to the little boy who had thrown it, who immediately chucked it at someone else’s head.
Punk kids, Martin thought, remembering Colby. Of course, these ones were probably a little young to qualify.
The one good thing about being surrounded by a herd of kindergartners was that it still gave you reasonable privacy. The kids were all so loud and their attention spans were all so short that you could talk about anything you wanted and they wouldn’t hear you. And if they heard and remembered the adults around them talking about dragons and flying horses—well, kids had such great imaginations, didn’t they?
“I don’t even normally handle kids this young,” Jillian said to Martin. “I usually just work with the teens. But someone got sick and then someone else had a family emergency and—well, here we are. They were all promised a lunch out. The two of you can go if you have to, I totally understand. This is not... a relaxing break in the middle of your day, and I know you both have a lot going on.”
Martin couldn’t have agreed more, but he thought Tiffani wanted to stay despite everything. She had told him on their way here that seeing Jillian was always one of the highlights of her week. He wanted the two of them to have their usual time together, even if the circumstances were far from ideal.
Besides, sometimes love meant putting up with the child next to you trying to rub macaroni and cheese into her skin like it was hand lotion.
Theo swooped down on her. “Jessamine,” he said sternly. “We talked about this. Food goes in your mouth.”
Jessamine dropped her overflowing spoon at once. “Sorry, Mr. Theo. I just wanted to have soft hands like Miss Jillian.”
“Well, if you can keep a secret, I’ll tell you after lunch how Miss Jillian keeps her hands so soft.”
He picked up her napkin, dunked it matter-of-factly in one of the glasses of water, and scrubbed her hands clean.