Page 19 of Make Mine Sweet
His expression shutters and he glances away, probably wishing a bobcat would come along and drag me into the woods. Meanwhile, I can’t shake my giggles. Ian Vaughn thinks it’s even a possibility we dated—and he doesn’t remember? Seventeen-year-old me would be mortified, but thirty-two-year-old me is hunched over from laughing so hard.
“You must have had agoodsummer,” I say when I catch my breath again. “Can’t keep track of all your girls.”
He scowls harder than he did the day I arrived here. “I was twenty-two.”
That’s it. That’s his whole explanation for flirting with every girl in town. It just makes me laugh more.
“The young and hot defense,” I say between giggles.
His eyebrows tick up. “Hot?”
I can’t even be embarrassed I said it. He obviously knows he had a way with women. Anybody who isn’t entirely sure who he once dated isn’t in need of a refresher on his own looks. “Hey. You were twenty-two.”
“It was a lifetime ago,” he grumbles.
August bounds onto the porch and straight to my side. “What’s so funny, Mama?”
“Just a joke Ian told.”
His little face brightens beneath the fine layer of dirt all over it. “I want to hear the joke.”
Ian winces as though I might actually tell my son about our exchange. My laughing fit isn’t very neighborly of me, even if his full social calendar back then strikes me as a bit ridiculous. I rearrange my features into something less outright amused by the whole conversation.
“I’ll tell you a joke later. You’ve got a couple more minutes before we need to go inside for dinner, okay?”
“Okay.” August runs back into the yard to perch on one of the bigger rocks surrounding the grass, holding court with Dutch.
The rattlesnakes Ian mentioned flit through my mind again, but I’ll have to trust that he’s right. Snakes would have been scared away by all of August’s shouts and running around long before now. It’s when you take them by surprise that bites happen. Probably.
Doesn’t mean I won’t think about them every time we come out here, though.
I finally relax again, and my gaze lands on Ian. He’s still scowling at me, and lifts his eyebrows, waiting for my answer.
Right. I guess I’d better put the guy out of his misery.
“Sorry. I got carried away. We didnotdate. We never even spoke.”
His shoulders ease back down, and I swear he sighs. Crisis averted, I guess. But I get it. Living next door to an old flame would be so much more awkward than living next to an old crush.
Although, given today’s conversations, living next to a crush can still be pretty dang awkward.
“Yet you remembered me?”
My laughter dies out, probably giving way to pink cheeks. I didn’t think about just how much I was admitting. “The red hair is pretty memorable.”
He nods. “And charming.”
Embarrassment blooms to life in my chest like I’m in high school again. Maybe I can swing the conversation back to dangerous animals.
His gaze drops over me as if he’s noticing me for the first time. The open appraisal makes heat crawl up my neck, but it’s not…unpleasant. I don’t get noticed. Not like this, anyway.
“I wouldn’t have been surprised if we had dated.”
Did the grump just flirt with me? Or is his remark meant to be a reminder of how many girls he met that summer?
Much safer to assume the latter.
“If we had dated, I can tell it would have been really special.”
