up into a small grin because he knew how much she needed one, and he couldn’t help it anyway. Verity Gwynn embarrassed was off-the-charts appealing. “Far as I can tell, baby? We don’t have a problem.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “‘Baby’?”
He shrugged. “You mind?”
“No,” she whispered. She searched his face for a moment before letting herself grin back, the sight of those sweet dimples making his heart soar. “But I think you’re taking it easy on me.”
He leaned forward, pressing his lips to her forehead and lingering there for a moment before drawing away, his own happy grin still solidly in place because she wasn’t leaving and she liked him and she wasn’t looking for a fling. “So what? Go ahead and let me.”
***
“I haven’t had steak in ages,” she said, smiling at him across the table as she cut another mouthwatering piece of perfectly grilled steak and savored it, closing her eyes and humming as she chewed. “Mmmmm.”
“I’m never making you steak again, woman,” he said darkly.
Her eyes popped open, and she giggled. “Why not?”
“Because you’re killing me with those little noises.”
Her cheeks warmed as if on command, and she reached for her wineglass, taking a sip as she watched him over the rim.
It had surprised her before, when they were on the steps, that he hadn’t kissed her. She’d expected him to. She’d all but given him permission. But after a fairly chaste kiss on the forehead, he’d taken her hand and led her to the table, pouring them each a glass of wine and asking her how she liked working at TLOC as he flipped the steaks on the grill.
They’d talked about work for a little while, and, to her relief, he voluntarily answered her question from earlier in the day.
“This afternoon you asked if I’d ever dated anyone at work.”
“I was just wondering,” she said, feeling sheepish.
“I did date someone. But it wasn’t serious, and it didn’t last long.”
“Is she still there?” Verity asked him, crossing her fingers under the table.
He shook his head. “Nope. She took another job in Vegas a while back.”
And Lord, but she’d smiled at him after that. He was free and she was free. And they liked each other. Things this good didn’t generally happen to Verity Gwynn. And suddenly, here, now, something good was happening.
“No more little noises,” she promised, placing her glass back on the table.
“I didn’t say ‘no more.’ I said they’re killing me.”
“Well, I don’t want you to die,” she said, butterflies in her belly as she nibbled on an ear of corn.
He chuckled softly. “What do you want?”
To know you. To really know you, and for you to be as good and sweet and right for me as I hope you are.
“To feel safe again,” she said instead.
“Do you feel safe here?”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Then let’s consider that wish granted because nothing scary’s getting through me. What else?”
She’d taken her shoes off, and he’d kicked off his flip-flops while he was at the grill. Now she sought his feet under the table because his words made her heart gallop and sigh, and she wanted to touch him. She ran one toe over the bridge of his foot, watching him sit up a little straighter, hot awareness darkening his eyes.
“What else?” he asked again, his voice gravelly.
“For Ryan to fit in somewhere. You know, to have a job and be useful and—I don’t know—maybe even have a friend. Someone like him.”
Colton nodded slowly, stretching out his legs under the table until his feet were under her bench. “Like him?”
She lifted her feet and rested them on his legs. “Slow. Sweet.”
“Developmentally disabled.”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath and sighed. “This might sound mean, but . . . I don’t want to be everything to him. I want him to have his own life, you know? Outside of me. I’ll always look out for him, but . . .”
“You’d like full-time care for Ryan? Like . . . in a group home?”
“No!” She cringed. “I’d never put him in a . . . a home. Never.”
“Wait. That’s not what I—”
“No, Colton. No way in hell.”
She shook her head, more and more emphatically, remembering the place she and her mother had looked at three towns over from Camilla after her father died. State-run and affordable, but filthy and outdated. Chipped light blue paint on cement block walls. Men like Ryan, zoned out, staring out barred windows while a game show blared in the background. No way. Not while she had