Playing with Words (Boggy Creek Valley #2) - Kelly Elliott Page 0,29
photography.”
I smiled. “It’s a blessing to be able to do something you love as your occupation.”
He nodded. “It is.”
“When did you move from Boston to New York City?”
Looking up in thought, he said, “I moved to New York after college and got a job with The Washington Post. Then I landed a book deal and things kind of took off.”
“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
The corner of Hudson’s mouth rose in a half smile. “Will you tell me how old you are?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’ll be thirty-two soon.”
His brows rose. “How soon?”
“Saturday.”
“No kidding? In three days, huh? Well, happy early birthday.”
“You’re avoiding my question, Mr. Higgins. You know I can simply Google it, right?”
He tossed his head back and laughed. “That’s not fair.”
I shrugged and feigned disinterest. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
“I’ll be thirty-four next month. If you ask my mother, though, she’ll say I’m six years past marriage and kids.”
With a disbelieving laugh, I layered the last of the noodles and grabbed the aluminum foil. “Six years past?”
He walked over to the oven he had turned on and slid in the frozen pizza. “Twenty-eight was when she had me, so I guess in her mind that’s the magic number.”
“Sounds like my mother.”
“What about you, Greer? Have you ever been close to marriage?” he asked as he leaned against the counter.
“Me?” I scoffed. “I’m married to Turning Pages. I feel like I live, eat, and breathe that place. I honestly haven’t had time to date anyone long term, and that’s okay. It took a lot of work to get the bookstore where I wanted it to be. I dated someone a couple of years back, but he told me I was more in love with the store than him.”
“Did you? Love the store more?”
For a moment, I pondered his question. “There’s no doubt in my mind that I put my business before him, which, looking back, was wrong. But in the end, I think if I had loved him like my grandmother and grandfather loved one another, then I would have invited him into that part of my life.”
Hudson drew his head back in surprise. “What do you mean?”
I sucked in a deep breath and held it for a moment before I exhaled. “In order for any man to be a part of my life, he’s got to be a part of Turning Pages. It’s more than a job, it’s a dream. And I never let Andrew be a part of it. He never asked about it, though, to be honest. He hated to read, hated the smell of old books, and hated the fact that I devoted so much time to it all.”
A silence fell between us, and I glanced over at Hudson. He was staring at me again. Almost as if he was trying to see inside of me. I both loved and hated it. I loved it because of the warmth that spread through my body and hated it because I longed for more of that feeling. I was beginning to wonder if a fling with this man would ever truly be enough.
“I never looked at things that way, but you’re right,” he said. “I think in order to have someone in your life, they need to want to be part of your whole life. My mother loves traveling with my father. She doesn’t always go with him, but she always asks about his work. And he does the same with her paintings.”
“She paints?”
He nodded. “Yes, she’s incredibly talented. My father brags about her constantly. She used to work for an art museum when they first met. My father said he would go and sit and stare at the same artwork every day, only because her desk was to the right of it and he could look at her without being creepy.”
“That’s so sweet!” I gushed.
Hudson’s gaze met mine again.
I chewed nervously on my lip before I said in a voice so soft it was barely above a whisper, “I guess that’s what I’m waiting for.”
He cleared his throat. “Me too.”
Hudson
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to eat all this food, Greer.”
The door to the refrigerator stood open as I stared at everything she was putting in there. A giant bowl of chicken salad. Another smaller bowl of browned hamburger meat Greer said I could use to make tacos for lunch tomorrow.
“Instead of taco Tuesday, it can be taco Thursday!” she’d said with a wide grin, putting the cut-up tomatoes