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“Sounds great,” he said.
Carly pushed up from the table and headed to the refrigerator.
“Are you sure it’s okay?” Wyatt asked in a quiet voice, his gaze not letting her look anywhere else.
“It’s fine,” Anita replied. “Like Carly said, spaghetti is easy, and it’s nice to have company.”
“Nice for me too.”
She wasn’t sure how to read into that, and she only grew more curious about his life and relationships. “I’m just glad Carly likes you so much. Less butting heads.”
“I’m glad too.” Wyatt stood and headed to the row of cupboards. “Can you show me where the spices are?” he asked Carly.
Anita watched him for a moment, interacting with her daughter in their kitchen. It all seemed so...foreign, yet normal at the same time. She felt like she was looking in through a window at some other family that wasn’t hers, as a man and his daughter bantered in the kitchen while they cooked. Anita gave a small shake of her head. She couldn’t let those thoughts enter her mind right now. She wasn’t looking for a relationship. And Carly didn’t need the complication of more than what she was already dealing with.
Anita stood and joined them in the kitchen, pulling out the pots—one for the sauce, one for the pasta. In the next little while, she found out that Wyatt liked to whistle, that he was particular about spaghetti sauce, and that his presence somehow made her home full of bright sunshine despite the rain outside.
ANITA HADN’T REALIZED SHE’D MISS Wyatt Davis so much. For the past two weeks, she and Carly had visited Mr. Davis, but never when Wyatt was there. He’d called once, about a week ago, just to say he was still waiting for the mailings to come from Nevada. They’d agreed that when it arrived, they’d set another time to get together.
Phyllis had brought up Wyatt at their shared lunches, when they were sitting on the back patio overlooking one of their gardens. But Anita maintained they were friends and that she didn’t have any extra information to offer. Besides, she wasn’t going to spill any of the thoughts circulating in her head about the man anyway.
But when the phone rang a short time after one of the lunches, she answered to hear Wyatt’s voice on the phone. She knew immediately why he’d called.
“You received records from the city office?” she asked.
“I did.” Wyatt’s voice was warm, deep, and made her stomach do a little somersault.
“Anything look interesting?”
“It’s hard to tell without making the calls,” he said. “But there’s more here than I expected.”
“Ms. Anderson really came through,” Anita mused.
He chuckled. “She really did.” He paused. “What’s your schedule like in the next few days?”
She walked over to the calendar on the wall. She knew the schedule, but looking at the date boxes with the handwritten details in them helped her focus. “Carly started in the school band and has practice three days a week after school.”
“Oh, that’s great she’s involved with band. What does she play?”
Anita smiled at his enthusiasm. “Uh, the french horn for now. It’s all new. She’s doing it with those new friends she made.”
“Were you in band?”
“No.” She laughed. “I was an art geek. What about you?”
“Uh, no musical talent for me.”
She waited, and when he didn’t continue, she said, “What did you do in high school?”
She heard his sigh on the other end. “Cross country.”
She could easily picture him running. He probably still ran. That would explain his lean physique. “Oh, do you still run?”
“I do.”
“I don’t think you could pay me to run for fun,” she said, twisting the phone cord around her fingers. “The last time I ran was for a PE class in high school.”
“You probably didn’t give it a chance,” he said. “The more you run, the more you want to do it.”
