Page 17 of Crumbling Truth
“If I didn’t know that, I would have slammed the door in your face the first time you invited me to dinner,” I said sharply.
Maybe I wasn’t fully convinced I could trust my gut yet after everything Steve had done to make me feel like my reality waswarped to hell, but I’d done enough work in therapy to finally rely on my instincts again.
Theo Silver was as different from Steve as night and day. That much I didn’t doubt for a second.
The smile that flashed across his bearded face looked both pleased and relieved, like he realized me snapping at him meant I wasn’t as fragile as he feared. I would’ve been annoyed if his concern didn’t kindle a ball of warmth in my belly. After our collision, he hadn’t stepped away, so we were still standing almost uncomfortably close.
At least, it would have been uncomfortable had he been anyone other than himself. I didn’t want to explore that too carefully just yet.
“Why wouldn’t she have told me anything about you, do you think?” he asked.
I shook my head slowly. “I’m not sure about that part.”
Still barely half a foot away, Theo swept his amber gaze over my features, from my hairline to my chin. He paused ever so slightly at my lips, then lifted his eyes to mine once more. “Because if she’d told me you were young, beautiful, and clearly quite able-bodied, I might not have let her talk me into coming. By letting me believe you were a little old lady who needed some degree of help, refusing to come up here would’ve made me into the asshole.”
I snorted. “Are you saying Dr. Anita Vasquez-Silver is the asshole here, Theo?”
“No,” he protested quickly, lips twitching. “However, she’s a mastermind when it comes to playing the long game, and she’s spent almost two decades trying to get me to come back into town. I wouldn’t put it past her to use whatever weapons she could in order to get me here.”
The ball of warmth was spreading upward the longer I spent at this proximity, so I drew a breath and turned to lead us bothinto the kitchen. “Well, mastermind or not, we’re grownups who can handle ourselves, right?” I asked as I sat down at the table.
“We are, indeed,” he agreed. “We’ll save the mystery for another day. Now, it’s time for you to give me a crash course on food allergies so we can get dinner going. I’m famished after all that heavy lifting.”
Chapter Seven
Theo
Estherwasanexcellentinstructor, patient and concise. She had a sharp sense of humor that seemed to come out of nowhere, flashes of dry wit that kept me laughing all through the process. I still wasn’t happy about the idea that my mother had tried to warn her away from me, but given that she’d done so by complimenting me, I wasn’t completely sure I could complain.
Of course, I also believed that if my mother thought Esther would view me as any kind of threat, she would have drilled into me that I was to behave like a perfect gentleman. That was more her style.
And if I couldn’t deny the sizzle of attraction when Esther and I were standing so close together? Well, part of me wondered if my mother had foreseen that, as well.
By the time we finished making the pasta primavera—which I assumed she chose in order to go easy on me—Esther had probably said more than I’d heard out of her in our previousencounters altogether. I thought at first that she was nervous, chattering to fill the silence, but it didn’t come across that way.
It seemed more like she’d finally deemed me safe enough to trust with her social energy.
“Is it a pain in the ass for you to eat at restaurants?” I asked, frowning as I realized just how much the allergies must impact her life.
Esther shrugged. “It can be. Certain places are better than others. The benefit to such a small town is that people know me and once I find somewhere that’s willing to work with me, they get to know the drill.”
“What about dating?”
“Like I said, I…don’t really date,” she said slowly, “but yes, it can complicate things. My first kiss wasn’t until college, because I was so worried about making sure whoever I was with hadn’t eaten anything with nuts recently.”
I frowned at that. “Are partners really not willing to forgo nuts for your safety? Seems like an easy choice.”
Esther stared at me for a second before saying, “Thanks, I think?”
As I finished serving up our dinner, I made a mental note to be sure I stopped consuming anything with nuts. Whether it proved necessary or not, I didn’t want to do anything that might put her at risk. It seemed like such a small change for me, but it could make a world of difference for her.
Or maybe evenus.
The thought came out of nowhere, along with the desire to kiss her now that the topic had been raised, but it settled over my chest like a weighted blanket, soothing something deep in my soul. My presence here might be temporary, but that didn’t mean Esther wasn’t interested in temporary, too.
Still, I’d let it simmer, see how things unfolded between us.
“You said you’ll have the truck at the tree lighting the weekend after Thanksgiving?” I asked as I set a plate of food in front of her.
