Page 36 of Guarding My Love

“You can’t help yourself if you don’t know how,” he said.

“Did your mother teach you that?” she asked.

“Pretty much. I saw how hard she worked and everything she did. I think that is why we cut her so much slack when she wants to interfere now.”

“Can I ask where your mother lives now?” she asked.

He seemed to hesitate. “North Carolina.”

“Is that where you are from?” she asked.

“I’m from a lot of places because we traveled a lot, but Fayavette is the last home my mother has lived in. Or the last city. That’s home now in a way.”

“And far enough away that you don’t see her often,” she said, smiling. “I bet you don’t talk to your family much.”

“More than I care to,” he said drily.

She’d let it go. She didn’t want to pry. She felt she had an understanding of Foster and that he’d tell her what he wanted to.

He seemed to guard himself more than her and because she knew what he felt like, she wouldn’t push.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said.

“Are you leaving?” he asked, frowning.

“I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” she said. Even if she wouldn’t mind being in his company more.

“We can sit on the deck and look at the water,” he said. “Boring, I know. But I like doing it at night.”

“I’d love to,” she said. “I should thank you again for letting me sit on your bench. Marco and I enjoy it. I thought I’d miss all the action of the city, but when I went to the office last week I didn’t know how much I missed home until I walked in the door.”

“It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?”

“Yes. And I can say this is my home too,” she said. “No one can take it away from me.”

He grabbed her another bottle of water and one for himself, they went to the deck and sat there in quiet for a minute or two.

She wasn’t even ready to jump out of her skin like she might have in the past over the silence.

“Do you like being on the water?”

“I know how to swim if that is what you’re asking,” she said. “When it gets warmer, I might go in. I’d like Marco to enjoy it.”

“I mean the boat,” he said. “Have you been sailing before?”

“I’ve never been on a sailboat,” she said. She’d been on a yacht but wouldn’t add that. No reason to. She’d already admitted that she dated older men who had money.

He probably thought she was some greedy gold digger and she was trying to make sure he didn’t think that.

She’d never been that way.

It just happened to be the men that paid attention to her.

That made her feel good about herself.

But more weren’t honest to begin with and she hadn’t seen it.

“Maybe we can go out on it sometime,” he said.

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