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He had to laugh over that comment. He wasn’t sure why they were talking about children and spouses, but it wasn’t making his heart race for him to run out the door like it had with other women he’d dated in the past.
“You’ve got a good attitude about it. What’s your next step?”
“I need to know more about this woman. Dane seems to think my parents might know. He’s probably right. As annoying as they are about things and their advice in my life, they have always put us first. My guess is they might have kept tabs at some point to know something if either of us ever asked. Once I hear what they have to say, then I’ll consider looking into Emily more myself. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I won’t go in blind either. That isn’t how I operate.”
“As we know,” he said. “Need to have those ground rules.”
She smiled at him and pulled the fries out of the oven, put cheese on the burgers and grabbed water for her and beer for him. “You deserve this after listening to my drama today.”
He took the beer out of her hand. “That’s not a lot of drama,” he said. “I think it’s more it caught you unaware and when that happens it builds more in our mind. Sounds to me like you’ve got a good game plan and that shouldn’t surprise me either.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll be okay once I talk to my parents. I’ll give them a call tomorrow and see about going to visit this weekend. I’ll do a little research myself before then and see if I can find her on the internet. As tempted as I was to do it today, I had to push it aside. I had you coming over.”
“You could have canceled,” he said.
She put the burgers on a plate and set the rolls out. “Help yourself to what you want,” she said.
He picked a plate up and got his dinner ready. “What if what I want is you?”
“Which is why I didn’t cancel,” she said. “Because even though I’m very appreciative that we talked about this, what I needed was just you.”
He looked at her. “Human contact and a physical release to feel like you are in control again?”
He wasn’t joking when he said it. He didn’t want to be hurt if she said yes, but he expected her to be honest and it was best to continue with the way things were.
“It started out that way in my mind,” she said. “But it turned into so much more. I might have just surprised both of us.”
He leaned down to kiss her on the lips before he sat down to eat. “I think you’re right.”
22
Did Something Right
Chloe had sat on the news for a few days and finally called to go see her parents.
She was shocked she ended up telling Royce what had happened with the letter but even more stunned when he was so supportive.
She wasn’t sure why she was when he hadn’t given her any reason to think he wouldn’t be.
They were friends still, he’d reminded her.
If she was thinking it’d be nice to be more than that, she shut those thoughts behind a wall and used a nail gun to rapid fire it closed.
He’d not only listened to her but said he had a friend that was a private investigator, that if she thought she wanted to look into Emily some more he’d get her in contact.
It had merit and she’d thought of it for a few days too, but right now it was better to see what her parents had to say.
“Chloe,” her mother said when she walked in Saturday morning. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen you. Have you been busy?”
“No,” she said. “Not really. Nothing more than normal everyday life. How have you been?”
“The kids will be here later. I’m watching them for the night since Dane is on call. He’s with them now and then will bring them over while he runs to the hospital for rounds. He said he knows he’ll have to go back later because there are things going on so he didn’t want to worry about waking them to bring them back.”
She knew her brother hated to give his time up when he had the kids, but if work called he had no choice. He never wanted it to be held against him with Melanie in a custody battle.
“I know that bothers him to do it,” she said.
“It does, but he’s staying here too.”
