could screw it all up: the secret he’d kept since her stepfather’s funeral.
His clients were falsely accused of wrongdoings all the time. Divorces could cause hurt feelings, and the parties sometimes lashed out, making things worse.
He knew better than to present something without evidence to back it up.
If he said something and it turned out to be wrong, he risked her being angry at him for telling tales. She’d question his motives.
“Mason. You okay?”
He met Sierra’s inquisitive gaze and smiled just because having her here made him so damn happy. “Yeah. Fine. Just got lost in thought.” He tipped his chin toward the plate of pigs in a blanket. “Those look really good.”
Danny took one and tried to see the TV around her hips. “Mom, move.”
“Please,” she prompted him.
Danny fell back into the cushions. “Please.” He leaned over to check out the play on TV and groaned over the incomplete pass.
Sierra set the plate on the coffee table. “I’ll get the rest of the goodies.”
Mason rose and stood next to her. Close enough to smell her sweet floral scent. He’d missed that about her. She always smelled so good. “Let me help.” He followed her into the kitchen, pulled the bottles of root beer and vanilla cream soda from the fridge and out of their cardboard holders, and placed them in the metal bucket he’d left on the counter.
“I love cream soda.”
“I remember.” He tried to play it off like it didn’t mean anything, but Sierra stared at him, getting that he’d stored away a lot of memories and tidbits about her. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she made him pay attention.
Maybe if he’d paid attention to his fiancée the way he did when Sierra was around, he’d have made it down the aisle and filled this house with his own family.
“I’m sorry, Mason.”
At first he didn’t know what she meant, then he caught the remorseful look in her eyes. “We don’t need to do this, Sierra.”
“I do. I’ve held on to it all this time. I’ve wanted to say something to you for so long, I just didn’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to apologize for being in love with David and wanting to be with him.” It sucked. But Mason couldn’t change the way she felt. Back then, he’d hoped maybe there was something deeper than friendship between them. Maybe there was, but she’d still picked David. Admittedly, he’d known she would. She and David had been seeing each other for a good long time. So Mason had swallowed his feelings and everything he’d wanted to say to her until it was too late and what little he had said hadn’t been enough for her to really believe he wanted her to take a chance on him.
She shook her head. “I apologize for . . . whatever that weird scene was between us. I wanted to say something, then I didn’t, and you didn’t know what to say to me acting so weird, and then every time we saw each other afterward it was . . . strange. I made it weird.”
“Look, I’m not going to deny that I hoped maybe you thought David wasn’t the man for you.”
“Wait. What?”
Mason thought she knew, but it looked like he’d been wrong. Great. What did that mean for them now? He didn’t know, but he continued anyway because he’d been caught. “You and I were always friends, but I hoped we could be something more. David was my friend, but I still hoped you and I . . . Well, I shouldn’t have made things more awkward when you were with him.”
Her head tilted to the side and her gorgeous dark hair draped down her arm. “More awkward?”
Shit. He hadn’t meant to bring this up. “David knew I had a thing for you.”
“He did? You did?”
Her disbelief made him chuckle without any real humor. He laid it on the line. “It’s more accurate to say I do.”
Her brown eyes filled with surprise.
“Come on, Sierra, I might have been trying to hide it when you were with David, but I think I’ve made it clear now that I’m interested in seeing if there’s something between us.”
“I’m . . . not good at this. It’s been a long time since I dated anyone. You and I have history. We’re friends.”
“And I hope that never changes, but I want more.” He took a step closer, drawn by her wide eyes, so filled with disbelief, wonder, and hope, he