could get trapped there.
“We’re going to have a great time,” he told her.
“I already am,” she responded.
He’d told her she looked beautiful.
Daralyn held that to herself like a promise, a desperate hope that things would go well tonight. She wouldn’t have a panic attack, or do something to embarrass him. Several times while getting dressed, she’d considered all the things that could go wrong, and it had almost overwhelmed her enough to do something she would never do; tell someone she couldn’t do something she’d been asked to do.
Dr. Taylor told her to break things down into bite-sized pieces, rather than trying to take everything at once. Rory had said the same thing to her at the store, more than once.
He looked really handsome. He always did, but tonight, he wore a suit, complete with a white dress shirt and a tie. His hair was neatly trimmed on his neck, layered on the sides, with that light feathering of brown strands across his sun-lined brow. His beard’s soft gleam made her want to touch, stroke.
He had thick lashes and fierce brows, a lot like Thomas. His eyes…the first time she’d tried one of the Lindt dark chocolate squares that Elaine kept in a jar on her kitchen counter, she’d turned it over and over in her fingertips, and thought of Rory’s eyes. They could get even darker when he was angry, or stirred up. Aroused.
She knew what that looked like now, for him. And she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
So much had happened between them in what seemed like such a short time, but it wasn’t short at all. She’d been thinking about him a long time, even before he’d kissed her under the mistletoe that past Christmas. She thought he had been thinking about her too, because when they worked in the store, she saw him looking at her certain ways. If they were behind the cash register counter together, he would look at her, their faces so close, because even with him seated, the difference in their heights didn’t require him to look up much at all to look her in the eye.
It was as if there was a heat there between them, drawing them together.
But for all those months since their kiss at Christmas, he hadn’t acted on it, and it wasn’t her place to initiate anything. She was a mess of emotions most days, unless she completely shut down, something she’d promised Dr. Taylor she would try not to do. Back before she came to live with the Wilder family, she existed day to day by creating rooms in her head where she could go, while the parts of her that could work on autopilot did. She hadn’t known that was what it was called, autopilot, but she thought auto-plod made more sense. It wasn’t like flying at all. Just a constant slog through a choking mud that stayed the same, that you hoped stayed the same, because it could become concrete really fast.
Things could always be worse.
Even if Rory had wanted to pursue anything with her, she knew why he hadn’t. She’d experienced a setback after that Christmas, her panic attacks taking over again when Dr. Taylor had her do test runs, visiting places that were outside her comfort zones. So many things piled on top of that lovely kiss, squashing the few little scenarios she’d created in her mind of where it could go from there.
She’d given up hope, figured it was a lost opportunity, and focused on getting the confidence she needed to start school. The ache of “could-have-beens” with Rory had been added to her vast chest of other could-have-beens. But that one had lingered outside the box, edged with a particularly sharp regret. Maybe because she saw him every day, while the other could-have-beens were already well out of reach.
She’d rallied, found the confidence she needed to finally start school. Rory had not only helped her make that final step, he’d shown her he’d never lost interest at all. Hope was not lost. Those possibilities were back in the front of her mind. When she looked at him, a full garden bloomed inside her, rivaling the lovely bouquet he’d thought to bring for her.
Since he used hand controls to drive, he couldn’t continuously hold her hand, but she was glad for how often he did anyway, like at stop lights. The looks he sent her, a mix of heat and intensity, made her hand quiver inside the grip of his.
Her mind