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The wind blew Kim’s hair across her face, and she reached up and tucked it behind her ear. “I know you’re different. I heard him complaining more than once that he wanted to do something that would make a lot of money and you refused because it was unethical. I know that’s crazy, but it made me respect you. Every time you defied him to do what was right, he would growl and be angry, which wasn’t pleasant, but even before I met you, I really, really liked you.”
She felt her cheeks getting hot, and she turned her face to the wind, ostensibly to look out over the lake and feel the breeze. Not to hide her heating cheeks and the embarrassment over what she had just said. Obviously she liked him, after the night they’d had together, he could hardly doubt it, but that wasn’t the kind of like she meant.
“I don’t know how to make it so that night isn’t sitting between us, but I wish it wasn’t.”
Her effort to hide her embarrassment apparently did not work. He could tell exactly what she was thinking and somehow figured out the source of her embarrassment.
“I wish it wasn’t either.”
“We can’t change it, so let’s just acknowledge that we...did something completely out of character for both of us, and maybe just move on?”
That wasn’t quite what she wanted to hear. Aside from the fact that she couldn’t just erase the knowledge of that night from her brain, his gentleness, his care, how cherished she felt, the way she fit perfectly in his arms. She didn’t really want to erase any of it.
She liked the fact that earlier he said that he didn’t regret it other than the sin and guilt. That was pretty much how she felt too, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about having a baby at her age, unwed, with no job, having just lost her mother and with her only other daughter turning her back on everything she’d been raised to be.
She loved Alyssa, but it was discouraging. It made having another baby less exciting and more like she was filled with dread because she might screw up again.
“Yeah. Let’s move on. I... I probably will have a little bit of trouble, because I’m embarrassed. But I think you’re right. Let’s just start fresh. We can be friends. We can co-parent. We can do this.” She looked up at him, some of the joy that she’d been feeling since he gave her his little pep talk up in his living room coming back.
God was there. He wasn’t surprised. He already knew the way, and He would hold her hand with every step she took. That was encouraging and reassuring, and she wanted to hold on to those promises.
“Come on. I’m hungry.”
To her surprise, she found that she was actually feeling a little hungry too. Hunger had been something she hadn’t felt much of in the last few months. Too many other things stealing her thoughts and subduing her appetite.
“Would you like to walk?” Davis asked as he stepped around his truck, his hand on the passenger door, as though he were going to open it up for her if she wanted.
“Sure. I appreciate that.”
He smiled at her, and she smiled back, and for some reason, she felt like maybe they’d just come to an understanding. Maybe they really had moved past that night, and they were going to start building something new, something on a stronger foundation, something that would withstand the test of time.
Chapter 8
Charlotte wiped thetable and tried not to question her life choices. Choices that had led her to open a diner in the almost dead lakeside town of Strawberry Sands.
She’d given it the original title of Beachside Bakery, and she had a lot of high hopes when she opened.
