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She patted his cheek. “Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I’d pay for your admission.” Chuckling, he waved. “See ya, Rach.”
“Bye.” Shaking her head, she went back to her pancakes.
“He’s such a dear boy,” her grandma said fondly. “Is Alice going to be at the speed dating? Because we should encourage that. They’d make beautiful babies.”
They would. Chris might be just her friend, but she wasn’t blind—he was hot. His milk-chocolaty skin made his light-blue eyes pop, and he had all those muscles from hauling kegs and stuff. Mixed with Alice’s blond beauty, the children would be stunning. “He just told me to mind my own business.”
“There’s minding your business, and then there’s doing what’s right,” Lottie proclaimed. “Chris deserves a good woman.”
She used to wonder why her grandma didn’t encourage her to date Chris. After the divorce, one night when they were drinking wine and talking, she’d asked. Lottie had just made a face and said Chris was wonderful, but he wasn’t for her.
Sometimes she wished he were because then things would be easy. But then she’d think about kissing him and want to throw up a little in her mouth because it’d be like kissing her own brother. “Maybe Chris is already seeing someone.”
“I guarantee that Christopher Miller has no girlfriend,” Lottie said with authority.
“How do you know?”
“Body language. You can always tell when someone is getting nookie.”
She gaped at her. “Grandmother.”
“What?” Lottie wiped her mouth again and then primly drank her coffee. “You act like you know nothing about the birds and the bees. And maybe you don’t because you met Christian Grey last night and did nothing about it.”
She knew a thing or two, but she wouldn’t mind a refresher course, particularly with Christian Grey.
That was something she wasneveradmitting to her grandma. Who knew what Lottie would do?
She waited for Lottie to finish and then cleaned everything up. Refilling Lottie’s coffee, she dropped a kiss on her head. “I’m going to change and then mow the lawn.”
“Okay, sweetheart.” Patting her hand, Lottie pulled the newspaper close again and resettled her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “I’m just going to finish the word jumbles.”
Smiling, Rachel went back to her room. She made her bed and then got out a pair of jean shorts and T-shirt. She scrounged in her underwear drawer for a bra she wouldn’t mind sweating in and pulled out an old pair of panties. Drawing her hair up into a high ponytail, she declared herself good to go.
The house been an old farmhouse that they’d renovated in a mid-century design after they’d moved in, which made it look stylish now. Lottie stayed in the parlor, which had been converted into a bedroom years ago. They left the master bedroom alone by tacit agreement. One time, Lottie had told her that sometimes she could still smell her husband in there, and it made her miss him too much. Rachel figured that was as comforting as it was disconcerting.
As much as she would have liked to live like an adult and have her own place, Rachel was glad she was there to help Lottie around the house. It was a lot of house for one person, and the yard was one of the larger ones in the neighborhood. There were some things Lottie didn’t need to do, like mow the lawn.
Rachel went to the little shed in the back and opened the door slowly, keeping an eye out for spiders and webs. When she had more money, she was totally going to hire someone to do this.
She dragged the lawn mower out, rolling it to the front. It wasn’t the most reliable machine, but it was older than she was so she didn’t expect much. It was the gas-operated kind that had the string you yanked until the motor turned on. She gave it a couple yanks.
Nothing.
Sighing, she tried again a few times without any success. “Oh, so this is how you’re going to play it, is it?”
“Do you always talk to inanimate objects?”
She knew that sexy accent. She froze, bent over the mower. The last time she heard it was in her dream that morning.
Slowly, she straightened and turned around.
The star of her dreams stood at the edge of the sidewalk, near their gate, hands on his hips. He’d been running—he wore mid-length shorts, a sweat-soaked T-shirt, and sleek new-looking tennis shoes. His hair was disheveled, and he had more sweat on his face.
Chris was wrong. This man wassomuch more handsome than Christian Grey. She blinked a few times, pretty sure she was hallucinating. “This has to be too good to be real.”
“I’ve heard that about myself before, a time or two.” He smiled, though it was rueful, as he came to the fence. “We didn’t meet officially last night. Jamie.”
