Page 12 of Falling for a Grumpy Hero

“Oh, she’s a sculptor.” I smiled. “A painter too. She’s pretty famous. We even covered some of her work when I was an undergrad.”

His brow furrowed. “Well, what does she, you know… make?”

“Uhm.” I felt myself blushing to the roots of my hair, wondering if this was an appropriate line of conversation with my boss. “Mostly, she focuses on… anatomy.”

Ford chuckled for the first time since I’d met him, and the sound was surprisingly rich and warm. Tingles raced over my skin, but as always, he appeared to be completely unaffected. “What anatomy exactly?”

“Breasts,” I blurted. “Other stuff too, but yeah. Mostly breasts.” I kept my eyes firmly forward as I said it, but I could feel him suddenly looking at me, and it was a scalding look that made me feel hot despite the AC blasting.

“I might be in the wrong line of work,” he finally murmured and I smiled to myself, wondering if the ice had officially been broken between us.

I risked a glance at him, noticing a soft smile on his face while he shook his head. Yep. He’s letting me see him smile and he chuckled. That’s progress, Lila. Real good freaking progress.

6

FORD

Dust drifted in the air in the basement of the old church where I was sitting in a meeting with some other veterans. The specks sparkled in the muted sunlight filtering in through the windows, and I watched them sway one way and then another, seemingly immune to gravity.

With the contract for Heritage House secured, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Stuck in my head, I wasn’t paying much attention to the conversations going on around me, but I was here, sitting among some of the few people in the world who could relate to own experiences.

Usually, I liked listening to their stories, but today, I was too preoccupied with the turn of events that had transpired last week. I honestly hadn’t been expecting to be given that contract before I’d even moved out of the foyer, but after weeks of going back and forth with those clients, I had won.

My work was the only thing that had really gotten my blood flowing for a long time, and this was a job I was actually excited about. That big old house was steeped in so much history, and seeing the state of disrepair it was in had physically hurt.

Knowing I was going to get to be the one who breathed life back into it? Shit, that just about got me hard.

Just about but not quite.

The only drawback was that after spending a whole afternoon with Lila, another weight had taken the place of that weight I’d been carrying around over the contract. While the group around me chatted over stale coffee and powdered lemonade, I thought about her and the borderline miracle she’d managed to perform with the Fierras.

Rook leaned on my leg, snubbing his nose at the other PTSD dogs in the room like usual. I stroked my hand through his thick coat, wondering not for the first time if he was such an antisocial brat because of me.

My dog and I had that in common. We didn’t like people, but I wasn’t sure if he’d started out that way or if he’d simply decided that my way of doing things was better. He really did think he was human, so he might actually have taken on some of my personality traits.

“Thank you, everybody,” Joey, the guy who ran our group, said as he nodded at us. “That’s it for today.”

A general humdrum of chatter went up and guys stood, shaking each other’s hands and talking as they ventured off to the coffee station. I followed them there to grab a refill before I headed out, not talking to anyone as Rook trotted at my side.

I felt someone moving in on me and my gaze snapped up immediately, my senses sharpening on an instinct I didn’t really need anymore but couldn’t seem to shake. Taylor, a dark-haired dude a little younger than me, was coming closer. He grinned when he caught my eye. “Ford, what’s up, man? Didn’t feel like sharing today?”

I shrugged. For the last six months, I’d been attending these meetings religiously, hoping they might help with some of the issues I’d been having, but I’d never really spoken much. “I guess I was just in the mood to listen.”

Taylor chuckled. The guy was a talker. He’d been through hell just like the rest of us, but he was a lot more open about it than most. He inclined his chin, his eyes soft and happy, but understanding. “I get it. It took me about eight months before I started talking, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. You should try it. It helps.”

“Thanks, but I haven’t hit the eight-month mark yet. Maybe I’ll feel differently then. I’m fine for now.”

“Alright.” He gave me a smile, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, but he didn’t turn and walk away. Clearly, he had something else to say. “Uh, you won’t believe this, but your name came up in a conversation I was part of the other day. It turns out that my girlfriend’s best friend has started working for you.”

“Lila,” I concluded easily, feeling my insides tighten. “Why was she talking about me?”

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder like an old friend. “It was nothing bad, man. They were just talking about her new job and her new boss. Lila only just recently moved here, but she went to college with Addy, my girlfriend. They were just catching up.”

The gears in my brain turned. If his girlfriend had been friends with Lila for that long, she must know how the girl had ended up here and I was still curious about her. More so than ever before after what had happened with the Fierras.

“Yeah, I heard she was new in town.” I dug deep to that long-buried part of me that had known how to just chat with people. “Any idea how she ended up in Virginia Beach, of all places?”

Fuck. Real smooth, Ford. You really eased into it there, buddy. Shit, I really am rusty with this small talk thing.