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Dakota gave her a smile. “I’m okay with that.”
Quiet moments ticked by between them as his gorgeous sea-glass eyes scanned Luke’s essay. When he reached the end, he shook his head, blinked a few times, and sniffed. Leah wasn’t sure where to look as Luke’s words clearly affected Dakota.
He stared past her for a second then met her gaze. Clearing his throat, he said, “You’d better give him an A on this.”
She uncapped her pen, took a step closer, and wrote a big purple A at the top of Luke’s paper.
Dakota nodded and handed her the essay. He jogged back for his bike and rode it over, stopping a few inches in front of her. “Do you know what Luke’s best quality is?”
She knew the boy to have many admirable qualities, but she shook her head.
“Honesty.”
He gave her a grin, whistled to Ginger who immediately stopped reorganizing Leah’s school bag, and rode off. The dog happily galloped along beside him and Leah told herself to stop watching him. Luke couldn’t have been completely honest abouteverythingin his essay about Dakota. Surely some of it was an exaggeration.
Right?
As her gaze stayed focused on Dakota’s retreating form, he threw a quick glance back to her, smiling when he caught her still watching him.
Cocky.She didn’t need cocky in her life and she certainly didn’t need Dakota Brenton in it either. Yes, the man was fun to look at and the semi-witty banter was fun, but she wasn’t going to make a mistake. She’d already become too friendly with Heidi. She absolutely would not widen that circle. The more people she let in, the more people the universe could take away.
She wouldn’t survive that.
Sitting back on the bench, she finished correcting the essays and reread Luke’s about five more times. Had Dakota actually rescued a baby fox from an old well on the Reynolds farm? Was he really responsible for setting up a blood drive for Mrs. Williams when she’d needed a transfusion? Did the town truly have a baseball field because Dakota had organized a group of teenaged boys from the high school and led them in grading the field, installing bases, and building bleachers? Obviously some of this essay was fiction.
Wasn’t it?
Because if it was all true and Luke was as honest as Dakota had said he was, then Dakota Brenton had one kind heart. He was quite possibly The Perfect Man.
And Leah had said no to him for basically the third time. That either made her incredibly strong or… positively stupid.
Chapter Three
Two weeks after she’d seen Dakota at the park, Leah was having dinner at Heidi’s house. Something about turning Dakota’s invitations down led her to say yes when her colleague—and friend—had asked her over for pizza and beer. Heidi’s husband, Kyle, owned Mountain View Pizza, and the man was said to be a genius with dough. The Lennings had an outdoor brick oven on their patio that Leah coveted in the worst way.
“This thing is amazing,” she said after Kyle showed her the oven. She ran her hands over the bricks and inhaled the scent of pizzas cooked in the past. “I’d never eat anything but pizza if I had one of these.”
“You can never have too much pizza,” Kyle said. “I’ve developed many a recipe right here in this backyard.”
“And I’ve taste tested every one of them.” Heidi rubbed her belly and licked her lips. “This man is a pizza god.”
Laughing, Kyle slid his arm around his wife’s waist. “I swear she only married me for my pizza skills.” He dropped a kiss on Heidi’s cheek.
“He jokes,” she said to Leah, “but it’s totally true. If he was a burger man, we wouldn’t be doing the whole husband-and-wife thing right now.”
“Isn’t she the cutest vegetarian?” Kyle pulled Heidi into a full hug then released her. “She’s inspired a whole line of meat-free pizzas at the restaurant. What’s your favorite way to eat pizza, Leah?”
With someone tall and handsome and… adventurous.Damn. Where did that come from?
“Extra cheese, pepperoni, and black olives,” she said instead.
“Coming right up, along with some more exotic choices.” Kyle wiggled his eyebrows then disappeared into the house to prep his ingredients.
