Page 59 of Dandelion Sighs

“Looks like it.”

She didn’t move, her earlier self-deprecation now more like embarrassment. “Mom and Dad were always working. We grew up eating whatever was fast and easy. If it didn’t have to do with the resort, they didn’t have the patience to teach us.”

That explained a lot, but she didn’t have to justify it to me. Finally, she picked up the pot, scowled at me, and came around to my side.

I talked her through thawing the shrimp and chicken, then I got her to do everything. She followed directions, and I kept the music playing. I’d never thought twice about cooking. I’d been a bachelor for too long not to make food for myself, but this was nice. Her company always was. When dinner was ready, we filled our plates and took them to the table that had all our loaded boxes sitting on the floor beside it.

“I can’t believe you made me cook.” She sat, but there was a lightness surrounding her that wasn’t there when I first arrived.

I didn’t want to quit making this woman feel good about herself. I put my plate down and grabbed another beer for each of us. “What would you have eaten if I wasn’t here? Never mind. Ham sandwich.”

“I have some roast beef left, so I might’ve made it a club.”

I grinned. “Fancy.” This time I held my beer up. “To new beginnings and dominating the local lakeside resort life.”

“Hear, hear.” She lightly touched her can to mine, then we cracked them open and took a drink. After she took a bite of shrimp with some pasta, her eyelids drifted shut a heartbeat before opening onto me. “Oh my god. So much better than I imagined.” She speared another shrimp. “But how? You didn’t use that many ingredients.”

“Butter and salt, boss. You can ask Paola to back me up on that.”

She smiled, and we ate in easy silence for several minutes until she sighed and set her fork down. “I don’t contribute much to this…whatever we’re doing. It’s one-sided.” Her mouth was a tight line. “You’re always building me up and cheering me on. Isn’t that tiring?”

Frustration was ripe in her tone, and my surprise took me aback. Our dynamic bothered her, so instead of brushing off her feelings, I thought about my answer. I liked cheering her on. I didn’t hold her hand, but that was how she’d described it. How did I look at it from her point of view?

I scratched the side of my face, fingers scraping against my scruff. My ex dumped me, claiming she had wanted a partner. I had wanted support. For Sheridan, she had wanted a partner who supported her. From the way she had made it sound, she’d had neither.

“The ex I told you about…” I took a drink before I finished answering. “She felt like she was in the same place as you and your ex when she broke up with me, and it took me a long time to figure out why that bothered me.” I huffed out a laugh. “I mean, other than getting dumped.”

She shook her head. “You’re nothing like my exes.”

“I’d like to think so, but it’s how I act that determines whether I am or not. At the time, I was jobless, but I wasn’t helpless. I wanted time to figure my shit out, and she didn’t think I should need to.”

“Right.” She spun the beer can in her hand. Was she nervous about my answer? That I would tell her I didn’t like needy women and that was why I didn’t propose marriage as a way to get her the land. “I have a job, but I’m helpless?”

“No. Dammit.” All that time to consider my wording, and I had still fucked up. “You’ve been in her place. You felt like you were mothering them, and now you’re worried I’m mothering you.” Her brows ticked sky high, and my blood pressure skyrocketed. I could not jack this up. I forged ahead. “What you’re experiencing is all the support you should’ve had. You need more time, and that’s what I wanted to give you. Because I know how shitty it can be not to get it when you’re at your lowest.”

Her lower lip puffed out. “Oh.” She gnawed on her cheek. What I wouldn’t give to lean over and nibble along that pink line of her mouth, but this conversation was too important.

“Don’t mistake my meaning,” I insisted. “Support or not, you’re out there doing shit. You’re in here doing shit.”

A smile played over her mouth. “Is that the technical term?”

“Hell yes. You’re gettin’ it done. Run the resort? You dove all in. Clean up your mom’s house? Here you are. Putting up with a slacker who lost his job and is dragging his feet at finding another one? I’m here too.”

“You’re anything but a slacker.”

“To be fair, you didn’t see me for the last six months.”

“What were you doing?”

“Uncle duty. For free.”

She laughed, and her eyes danced. “That can’t be easy.”

“It’s not. Those buggers don’t sleep half the time. I told myself I was too tired to job hunt.”

“You just need time,” she said quietly, her smile still in place.

“You could say that. Then a beautiful woman took me in like a stray. She pays me, and sometimes she crawls on my lap and kisses me.”