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Still want to kiss you. The bright light of day hasn’t changed that.
It took a few minutes to realize two things—one, she was smiling like an idiot, and two, her heart was beating like a runaway train.
Quickly putting down her phone, she jumped up and began pacing.
Damn it, he was right—the bright light of day hadn’t changed a thing. Over the last twenty hours, she’d hardly thought of anything else but Mitch’s kiss, his warm body close to hers, his brown and blue eyes on hers, but most of all—her unexpected reaction to him.
Surely this craziness wouldn’t last; it couldn’t last. She didn’t even like the guy. He was forever yelling or frowning or both, and after Percy, she’d done her best to keep her life drama-free.
In all fairness, though, Mitch was nothing like Percy. She just had to remember the gentle way he was with her son to know that.
But… if one dance with Mitch Miller made her feel this way, imagine what spending more time with him would to do her equilibrium.
The hopelessness she’d experienced the week she’d been dumped at the altar, lost her job, found out she was pregnant, and discovered Percy had cleaned out their joint bank account, had been devastating. The only one other time in her life she’d felt like that was when first, their dad had died while she was still at school, and then a year later, her mother. That was when Aunt Janice had moved in with them, bringing some calm back into the household with her.
Since she’d discovered she was pregnant, her goal had been to try to create a peaceful environment for her son, one reminiscent of her own happy childhood. Craig and Aiden had both tried to get her to move in with them, but she needed a place to call her own, a place where she could escape from other people’s drama. She was never again going to rely on someone else to provide for her or her son; trusting someone else beside her family wasn’t a mistake she’d make again.
Aiden and Craig had been there for her every step of the way, though, insisting on helping. Craig had even moved in with her for a few months to help with Dylan. Fortunately, those first harrowing months with a small baby were behind her, she had a new job, Dylan was going to start prekindergarten, and her life was finally as she’d wanted it.
She was not throwing away her peace of mind because a devastatingly attractive guy had kissed her.
Picking up her phone, she quickly wrote a text. Deleted it. Wrote another one. Deleted it. She threw her phone down again.
There was nothing to say. She could tell him she hadn’t stopped thinking about their kiss. She could tell him about all the forgotten feelings he’d stirred up; she could ask him how she was supposed to forget those few moments of bliss with him, but she wouldn’t.
Picking up her phone again, she stared at the small screen. Maybe… maybe she could type out the words and not send the text. At least that way she’d get it off her chest and could maybe put the whole thing behind her.
Sitting down, she wrote a text to Mitch. After she’d finished, she put her phone down again.
He would never know how very close she’d come to making a huge mistake.
Chapter Four
Four months later,Riley stared open-mouthed at the photos on her computer screen. Alarmed, she closed the folder and the program before she jumped up and began pacing. How did this happen?
Her brief as the photographer on Craig and Annie’s wedding at the beginning of August had been clear. She had to take pictures of the happy couple—that had been her job. The focus had been supposed to be on them, their joy, what they did during the day, so what went wrong?
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. There had to be some mistake; she had probably opened the wrong folder.Deep breaths, O’Sullivan, deep breaths.It was Thursday evening, the last week of November, Dylan was already in bed, and she had to finish editing the wedding photos today so that she could finally send them to her cousin and his wife.
She’d been postponing doing this since she and Dylan had arrived back from Marietta. There had been many good reasons why she’d been putting it off.
The past four months had been crazy. Beside the normal requests for fashion shoots, she’d also received more and more invitations over the last few months to take part in exhibitions in galleries. It had never been something she’d even considered, but maybe she should try.
Earlier this year, she’d even had an invitation from a gallery in Bozeman to take part in an exhibition they were having over Christmas. They were looking for portraits, not really her thing, but it was nice to be recognized. Apparently, the owner had seen her work in a magazine and was hoping she’d be interested.
Not only had she been busy, she also hadn’t realized how much she would miss both Aiden and Craig. Before they’d both moved to Marietta, they’d often dropped by to help with Dylan or share a meal. She had also always been able to rely on them to step in and watch Dylan if she had to be somewhere for a shoot.
Both her brother and cousin had touched base in Portland for work over the last eighteen weeks and, accompanied by Vivian and Annie, had spent time with her and Dylan. It had been hard to say goodbye each time; she really missed having her family close by.
It was strange not having Dylan around her all day. On top of that, she was worried about him. He was normally a happy little boy who loved making friends, and she’d thought he would like school, but after nearly four months, he was still dragging his feet when they left for school in the morning. Obviously, he wasn’t very happy. It was probably just a phase. It had been an adjustment for both of them, but if this continued, she’d have to go and see his teacher. Hopefully soon, Dylan would be excited to go to school.
It was hard raising a child on her own. Even with the help of her cousin and brother, when they’d both still been living in Portland, there had been days she’d felt like getting into Dylan’s cot with him and joined in his crying. With time and patience and remembering her own mom, she’d learned how to be the best mom she could be.
She had a son, a home, and a job, and if she could just figure out how todothis school thing, she could be quite happy and busy and not keep thinking about Mitch Miller and his kiss.
It had been four months, seriously. Surely, she should’ve been so over the freaking kiss by now.
The whole incident was, even if she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it, of course, the reason she’d kept putting off editing the wedding photographs. It was too soon after her encounter with Mitch, and she simply couldn’t look at pictures reminding her of that night, of the kiss.
