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My gaze slid to Bennett again, and his lips looked like he’d sucked on a lemon, just as they always did when someone said a variation of that statement. I was beyond tempted to shout a childish, “I told you so,” but instead, I shrugged and pushed my food around on my plate.Go me. Adulting, level up.
“Tell us what you’ve been doing with yourself,” Mrs. Croft said. “It feels like just yesterday you were here for the summer and dating Bennett.”
My eyes bulged. Good thing I hadn’t had any food in my mouth, or I might have choked on it. “Whoa,” Bennett said at the same time I said, “Um, er, no.”
Bennett shook his head. “We were friends.”
Mrs. Croft shrugged, her gaze shifting slyly to her son. “My mistake. I could have sworn young love was in the air that summer.”
That wasn’t toilet paper on my shoe, but it was still pretty embarrassing that even Bennett’s mother had noticed I’d been crushing hard-core on her son. I definitely should have used my lawyerly skills with Lyra to decline this invite. “Sorry, Mrs. Croft—”
“Please call me Annette. We’re all adults now.”
“Annette. We’ve only ever been friends.”
As Annette said, we were adults, so why did it strike such a nerve that Bennett’s mother thought we’d dated when I’d been just a teenager? We were both nearly thirty and should have been able to laugh it off. Instead, we were sweating like we were in cross-examination.
Though to be fair, Bennett making me sweat was nothing new. The man had always stirred things in me. And earlier on the porch, I’d been reminded of the morning we watched the sunrise and how it had seemed like he might want to kiss me. Obviously, I couldn’t read this man any better than I could nine years ago.
“Like I said, my mistake,” Annette said. “Your name is still Holden, and I don’t see a ring on your finger, so I assume you’re not married.”
I smiled tightly. “No, definitely not married.”
“None of my children are married, either.” She shot a meaningful look at Bennett, who met her gaze evenly. They seemed to have a silent conversation, ending with Annette sighing.
The other Ramsey-Croft siblings were mysteriously preoccupied with the paintings on the wall as if they’d never seen them before. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the matriarch of the family wanted to see her children settle down. I wondered if that was why she’d had Lyra issue me the invitation—because she’d been hoping something was going on between Bennett and me.
Somethingwas definitely going on between us, but the hell if I could figure out what it was. At times, he was downright sweet and charming. Then at others, he was surly and standoffish.What would things be like if I wasn’t working for Markham? Would he have kissed me earlier?
I pushed the question out of my mind. No sense living inifland.Bennett had made it perfectly clear he was my professional adversary, and that trumped anything else we could have.
Taking pity on his older brother, Hudson cleared his throat. “Are you ready for surgery, Dad?”
“Hell no,” the older man said. “But I’ve been told it’s happening whether I’m ready or not.” This time, he was the one shooting a meaningful look at his wife, who met his gaze evenly as she bit into a green bean.
Despite her putting me on the spot earlier about Bennett and me being together, I liked her. She wasn’t easily intimidated. Of course, a woman didn’t raise a gaggle of children without having an iron will.
“One of the partners at my former firm had his hip replaced last year,” I said. “It didn’t take him long to recover.”
Mr. Croft wiped his mouth with a napkin and shifted in his chair. “How long?”
I had to think about it. When I was regularly working seventy- or eighty-hour weeks, time seemed to pass a little differently. “Um, a few weeks?”
His face fell, making me feel bad because I’d meant to be encouraging.
“Come on, old man.” Hudson clapped his father on the shoulder. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing. Mom will bring you dinner in bed, and you can catch up on all the Netflix shows. It’ll be great.”
He turned to his son. “While I’m out of commission, you’ll need to repair the leak in Mrs. Sullivan’s bay window.”
Hudson’s fork clattered to his plate, and his face paled. “What? Why?”
His father shrugged. “I’d told her it would take me a few weeks to get to it, but you know what, son? She’s been such a loyal customer. I think you’d better go over there right away. I’ll call her this evening to set it up.”
“Dad, no,” Hudson protested. “She never lets me leave until she feeds me mystery sandwiches and shows me pictures of all her single great-granddaughters. You promised you’d take care of her from now on.”
“Come on, young man,” Mr. Croft shot back. “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
Stifling a laugh, I decided I needed to be extra careful at this family dinner.So many choking hazards.
