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“That’s alright. Jake here has been my knight in shining armor. If you decide not to buy that car and need the Jeep back, I can count on him to give me a ride.”
“You bet your ass,” Jake said with a bark of laughter. “Come on, princess, time for bed.”
Boo raised her head and looked at him. She must have recognized the word princess, even though he’d been talking to me. We all laughed, and Lucky asked if he could keep Boo with him tonight in his room.
“Bear will keep her warm and safe. You two will just ignore her all night,” Lucky said. “You know I’m right.”
Jake stood up and reached for my hand. “Oz? That okay with you?”
I nodded and took his hand before walking over to kiss my baby goodnight. “Be a good girl and don’t do anything I wouldn’t… well, fuck. Just be a good girl, okay?”
The room erupted again, and I shot everyone the bird over my shoulder before leading Jake toward our room.
I didn’t spare a single other thought for whatever-his-name-was with the charming smile and red hair.
Chapter 18
Jake
The next two weeks flew by. Oz seemed to spend more time in town than on his fashion collection, but it didn’t seem to be bothering him. He flitted between the clinic lobby project, the pageant costume project he’d volunteered for, and the latest commitment he’d been roped into, which was helping consult on the decorations for the town’s big Winter Carnival.
He was a ball of energy. The man was friendly to the people of Haven and happily chatted everyone’s ears off while he worked side by side with them on one of his projects. Once word got out in our small town that he and I were dating, or whatever it was we were doing, people would make a point of stopping me to tell me how wonderful he was.
I hadn’t been in the hardware store for five minutes before one of Oz’s latest admirers stopped me to rave over my guy. “Oh, Jake! There you are,” Mrs. Inman said as she waved her hand like she’d been specifically searching for me. “I just wanted to say that boyfriend of yours is the sweetest thing ever. My granddaughter, Mina, is in the pageant, and Oz has been an absolute dear helping her find something to wear that can disguise her crutches. You remember she injured her ankle during the basketball game a couple of weeks ago, right?”
Before I had a chance to respond, she continued.
“Well, she has that awful cast and crutches, but that dear Oz designed a faux fur cape that is to die for! And damned if the thing doesn’t cover up her crutches and make her look like royalty. He’s a keeper, that one.”
I nodded. When I realized she was waiting for me to say something, I did.
“I can’t argue with you there,” I said politely, even though my heart squeezed painfully at the reminder that even though the man was definitely a keeper, I wasn’t the one who’d have the privilege of keeping him.
“Tell him I said hello, will you?” she called out as she made her way past me to the paint aisle.
“Sure thing. Thank you, Mrs. Inman. Remind Mr. Inman to come by the clinic for a blood pressure check, will you please?”
After the hardware store, I stopped in at Russ’s furniture workshop to ask him a favor. It galled me to have to ask him for help, but he was the only person I knew who could do what I needed done.
As soon as I walked in, his face lit up. “Hey there, Jake. How’s it going?”
Before I could say anything, Russ barreled on. “Hey, I keep meaning to ask you something. Are you and Oz still seeing each other? I mean, if it’s just a casual thing, I’d really love to get his phone number. I asked Bennett and Xander, but they told me to ask you. I’ve been so busy catching up on orders, I haven’t had a chance to come up the mountain and knock on his door.”
I opened my mouth to tell him not only no, but hell no, when I suddenly realized I had no right to say that. The reality was that Oz and I weren’t exclusive. Maybe in addition to our mutual agreement that what we had was temporary, Oz would want to play the field a bit while he was here. I mean, it wasn’t like we could have an exclusive relationship if there was no future in it, right?
“Uh… ah…” I scrambled my brain for a way to have it both ways–to let Oz make his own damned decisions, but make sure one of them wasn’t going out on a date with Russ.
No such luck.
“Sure,” I said as dread curled in my belly, making it twist painfully. “Let me just ask him first.”
