Page 44 of A Dream for Daphne

Which should have been the first sign they weren’t right for each other.

So many signs that he didn’t see and just wanted to hang onto something he’d wanted so desperately.

“That’s true,” she said. “Since I’m around kids I’ve got to have a fine line between being funny and being serious. I don’t want kids to hate being around me, but don’t want parents to think I can’t be responsible.”

“Something tells me you’ve been responsible for a long time in your life. Maybe starting younger than you should have been.”

She let out an unladylike snort. “Yes. As I said, my parents weren’t around. Aster is a few years older than me. He took care of me more than anything. Then I was on my own.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty-eight. Loser status that I was still living at home and barely making ends meet with nothing more than a high school diploma. I had money put away and still do, but it would have been hard.”

“Stop trying to explain or justify things. I don’t care about that,” he said. “I didn’t go to college either.”

“But you have a career. You had a goal and a dream and a future planned. My plans were to get a job and a daycare center was the first full-time one I could get.”

He thought about what she said. He always knew what his future would hold career-wise.

“Knowing what you’re going to do and making it come true isn’t the same thing,” he said. “I never thought I’d be running it as young as I am.”

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Thirty-three,” he said.

“Yikes, you’re old. I had no clue.”

He laughed when she said that. “See, you joke too.”

“I guess I do,” she said. “Maybe you bring it out of me. It’s nice and freeing almost.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “But as I was saying, my father was successful, but times change and I wanted to make the company into so much more. I’m still building it. Some of it was luck though. Getting the job at McGill’s has been huge already.”

“That’s ironic,” she said. “Because getting the job with the McGills has been huge for me too.”

“It only matters what you think,” he said. “Not anyone else. Remember that. I’m sure your brother would say the same.”

“He would,” she said, reaching for his hand. Their fingers threaded together and they walked side by side like that in the silence for a bit.

It didn’t bother him to not be talking.

Not when he was able to touch a part of her body, however innocently that he was.

When the trail narrowed and they couldn’t walk side by side, he released her fingers and moved ahead of her to push any shrubs or bushes out of the way.

“Watch your step here,” he said. “It dips down.”

“Now you’re being serious,” she said when she moved past the branch he was holding out of the way for her. “And gentlemanly.”

“My mother raised me that way,” he said.

“You talk about your mother so fondly. I find it very sweet.”

“That noise you’re hearing, that squeaking sound?”

“What?” she asked, looking around. “I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s my ego. It was riding high and now it’s got a pinhole in it and air is coming out.”

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