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He wasn’t giving up. Not by a long shot.
* * *
They talked the entire time they hiked up the trail. And Tasha loved all the stories about his family.
“Will met Harper through her brother, Jeremy, who was majorly into Will’s classic car collection. But honestly, I think Will fell for him first. He’s a great kid. So happy all the time.” He told her about Jeremy’s accident, and her heartstrings twanged for the boy. “Will and Harper got married on New Year’s Eve, and Jeremy gave her away. It even made me cry.” He mimed wiping his eyes.
“What about Sebastian?” Tasha had already heard what a fabulous artist Charlie Ballard was. Sebastian’s praise had been nonstop. Tasha had looked up her work online, and it was truly stunning—as was Charlie herself.
“He was looking for an artist to create something for his new headquarters. He went crazy for her work—but he totally went off the deep end for Charlie herself. Plus, you’ve got to love her mom, Francine. That little lady walks a mile a day despite her crippling arthritis. She’s amazing.”
Tasha adored listening to him—to the love that laced his words, to his deep, beautiful voice that made something sing inside her. She’d loved her father and brother, but nothing had ever seemed as exquisite as Daniel’s heartfelt stories about his family.
Thinking about her own family reminded her she needed to send out more emails. Though having heard nothing themselves, Barbara and Drew’s friends had written back to give her more names to contact. She had so much more to do, but for today, she would let herself bask in the sweetness of being out in nature with Daniel.
“And Matt?” she prompted him, pushing back the bill of her cap as she glanced over her shoulder at him. The day was warm, but not grindingly hot.
“He’s done such a great job of raising his son alone. Noah is the best. He’s so smart, so interested in everything. Ari was his nanny, but she and Matt were always meant to be together, and they’re getting married later this year.”
“It’s wonderful that they’ve all had such happy endings.”
“It really is,” he agreed. “Take Paige and Evan. They’ve known each other forever—she’s his ex-wife’s younger sister—and they’re a match made in heaven. He actually met Paige first—it just took him a heck of a long time to recognize that real love was there in front of him all along.”
She was glad Daniel’s friends had all found a second chance. Even if she still wasn’t sure she deserved one herself. After all, while most of the Mavericks’ parents had been truly evil, the Mavericks themselv
es hadn’t been complicit.
“The guys have come a long way from Chicago,” Daniel said. “And let me tell you, none of them had it easy. They ran the gamut from alcoholic parents, to abuse, to abandonment.”
Her foot slipped on a rock, but she caught herself before Daniel could touch her. They hadn’t kissed again, not like that perfect moment in the cabin. Despite how marvelous he’d been about her huge confession, she was still on tenterhooks around him. Yet at the same time, she was so ready for his touch, his kiss, his heat, even as impossible as that was.
It was an effort to keep walking and talking instead of turning around and throwing herself at him. “You must have had it hard too, since you came from the same neighborhood.”
“My parents made sure there was always enough love to go around and enough food on the table, even if we didn’t have the finer things of life.”
There were few men who would extol such virtues out loud. He wore his pride and love for his family like a suit of armor he never took off, a ward against anything bad. Yet there was the faintest shadow there as well, the same shadow that kept popping up whenever he talked about his parents. She wanted to press him, wanted to know more. But she knew how hard it was to open up all the way.
“And man,” he said, “the Mavericks adore Lyssa. She’s the little sister none of them had. They used to fight to see who got to take her to the park, not that it was much of a park. But if they saw any drug deals going down, they’d run out the offenders. Nothing was ever going to hurt Lyssa.”
“You obviously love her very much.”
“She’s the apple of our eye, as my mom would say.” He grinned wide with pride. “So pretty she makes men cry. And so smart. She graduated from college last year.” Love brimmed in his voice, then with another big laugh, he added, “I pity any guy who falls for her, because he’s going to have to run a gauntlet of Mavericks.”
“Sounds terrifying.”
“You should know, considering you’ve already faced them down. And they loved you.”
“Evan didn’t.”
He reached for her hand. “He was wrong to make judgments before he knew all the facts. Now that he has them, he’s on your side, Tasha. Just like I am.”
When he looked at her like that, with such warmth and compassion—and something richer and deeper that she was afraid to acknowledge—she longed to throw herself at him and shower him with kisses.
But kissing him again would only bring more complications.
And more heartache when it was time to say good-bye.
Chapter Seventeen
