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“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she whispered. “I’m not ready to date anyone yet. Plus, I don’t know when Sadie will go down and I wouldn’t want to hold up your dinner.” That was a lie—Sadie went to bed every night at the same time for the past two weeks. He was pretty sure that the kid would be asleep by eight, just as she was every night. She hated that she was using Sadie’s bedtime as an excuse not to have dinner with him. She was turning him down, and that felt like a kick in the gut, not that he’d tell her that. They stood in silence as they finished folding laundry. He looked over his shoulder to find that Sadie had fallen asleep in the laundry basket, and he couldn’t help but smile at the toddler. She was a pretty cute kid.
“Oh,” Rose breathed. “I better put her in her bed. Um, thanks for helping me fold the laundry.” She was dismissing him, and he could take the hint.
“Anytime,” he grumbled, walking out of her room. Rose might have shot him down, but he wasn’t done trying with her. Thorne had a feeling that Rose might be worth the trouble.
* * *
Rose had put Sadie down almost an hour ago and had been avoiding the kitchen since. Thorne had spent most of the evening perfectly grilling the ribs that he had marinated all day in the refrigerator. Thorne had thrown a couple of baked potatoes on the grill with the ribs, and he also made a giant salad, figuring that he needed some greens, and that Rose might appreciate the effort of his making a salad.
He sat down at the table with the giant plate of ribs just as she walked into the kitchen. “I was going to ask you if you changed your mind and would like to have dinner with me, but you’ve made it very clear that you’re not interested in anything like that,” Thorne said. Yeah, he was being an ass, but he just couldn’t help himself. Asking Rose to have dinner with him tonight, just the two of them, and having her turn him down hurt like a bitch. He loaded his plate up and started eating while Rose stood there and watched him.
“It’s fine,” she almost whispered. “I’ll have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, check in on Sadie, and then go to bed. I’m exhausted,” she said. Shit, now he felt bad for acting like an ass. What was it about this woman that made him feel like he needed to apologize every other minute?
She turned to go out of the kitchen, and he sighed, pushing the plate of ribs back from himself. “Rose, wait,” he ordered, surprised that she obeyed him. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass.”
“Yes,” she breathed, “you are, but it’s fine. I wasn’t very nice when I told you earlier that I wasn’t interested in dating you. I know that I probably hurt you and that wasn’t my intent. I just assumed that you were asking me out, and well, I guess I have my defenses up when it comes to men. I’m sorry that I mistakenly jumped to that conclusion.” She hadn’t mistakenly jumped to any conclusion. Honestly, he was asking her to have dinner tonight with him as sort of a date. They had spent the past two weeks, getting to know each other, and well, it had been a damn long time since he had dinner with a pretty woman. He could blame it on temporary insanity from the smell of her strawberry shampoo. But he liked her, and it didn’t really have much to do with the scent of her shampoo.
“How about you skip the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and eat some of these ribs? I won’t be able to finish them all myself and I made a salad and everything. I know how much you love salad.”
She giggled and nodded, “I do love salad,” she agreed. He could tell that she was thinking his offer over.
“If it makes you feel better, we can just consider this a late-night dinner—nothing else,” Thorne assured.
“I am hungry,” she said as if talking herself into his offer.
“Great,” he said, standing from his chair. He pulled out the chair next to his and she slid into it.
“Thank you,” she breathed. He handed her a plate and waited for her to load it up before digging into his food.
She nodded to his beer, “Do you have another one of those?” she asked.
“Um, yeah,” he said. Thorne stood and walked over to the fridge, pulling out a couple more beers, and handing her one. “I didn’t have you pegged as a beer drinker,” he said.
“Well, I don’t drink a whole lot when I have Sadie. I mean, I’m all she has and if I’m incapacitated and she needs me, that’s not fair to her, right?”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “You’re a good mom, Rose,” he said.
“I don’t need you to say that, Thorne. I’m just a single mom, trying to get by while doing the best that I can.”
“I think that you’re more than getting by,” Thorne said. “I don’t say things that I don’t mean. You’re a good mom.”
“I appreciate that, Thorne,” she said. “Some days, I feel like I’m doing a really good job, you know? I mean, she seems happy and all. But then, there are days when she’s fussy and I’m crabby about it, and well, I just feel like a failure.”
“I think that’s what makes you a good mother, Rose. I mean, if you got it right every single day, you’d probably be doing something wrong. Everyone has days when they feel like they’re failures, but you get up and keep on trying. That’s all you can do, right?”
“I guess, I’ve never thought about it like that,” Rose admitted. “Joe liked to point out my faults. He liked to tell me how I was failing not only him but our daughter. I guess that I started to buy into what he was saying.”
“We’ve already established that your ex is an ass, so I think that you should stop believing anything that he’s told you in the past,” Thorne said.
“That’s easier said than done,” Rose insisted. “I mean, if I was able to just block out all the hateful things he’s ever said to me, I probably wouldn’t have stayed with him for so long.” Thorne knew enough victims to know that was true. They usually believed the person abusing them and ended up staying for much longer than they ever should. Some of the victims never made it out of the relationship alive. Those were the ones who had stuck with him. Those women were the ones he wished that he could go back and save somehow, but he couldn’t. Thorne was too late to save any of them, but he could help Rose, and that’s what he needed to focus on right now.
“I believe you,” he said. He stood from the table and cleared both of their plates. “It couldn’t have been easy to live that life. You were smart to get out when you did though.”
“Thanks for saying that,” she said. Rose stood and brought the half-empty platter of ribs to the kitchen counter. “Um, I don’t mind doing dishes, since you cooked,” she offered.
He handed her a towel. “How about you dry, and I’ll wash?” he asked. The whole scene was so domestic that after a few minutes of them working together in unison, he found himself wanting to spill his guts to her. “I’ve never done dishes with a woman before,” he admitted.
She giggled, “Not even your mother?” she asked.
