AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ChapterTwenty-Two
“So, you’re telling me you’ve never been on a date with another woman in the twelve years that you’ve been divorced?”
“Well, technically… no.”
Jo looked Daniel over, unable to comprehend what could have possessed someone to cheat on a man like him. She wondered what was going through his ex-wife’s head.
“A friend of mine was going on a date, and he asked me to tag along to keep his date’s friend company. We quickly found out we had nothing in common and were actually butting heads a lot. In the end, we just quietly sat at the table staring at said friend and his date, all laughing and flirting, completely oblivious to the fact that we weren’t enjoying ourselves.”
Jo stared at him in disbelief before bursting into laughter.
“Sure, it’s funny now, but back then, it was a mortifying experience. One I vowed to never repeat.” Daniel cringed at the memory.
“I can’t imagine how awful it must have been,” Jo finally tapered her laugh to empathize.
“Yeah,” Daniel replied. “It’s fine, though. It didn’t go anywhere, and at the time, I had my daughter and her future to think about. After what happened between me and her mother, I didn’t want to subject her to meeting any random woman with whom the relationship would eventually frazzle out.”
“Tell me about your daughter,” Jo requested.
At the mention of his daughter, a wide smile broke out on Daniel’s face, and Jo found herself smiling too.
“She’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me,” he spoke, his eyes beaming with the love and affection he felt for his baby girl.
Jo gave him a knowing smile as she bobbed her head.
“Her name is Laura,” he supplied. “She’s a dental hygienist.” He beamed with pride once more.
“How old is she?” Jo found herself becoming very invested in his daughter’s life.
“She’s twenty-three.”
“Wow, that’s just… that’s mind-blowing,” Jo responded, looking at Daniel in wonder. “I remember being that age. I was already a stay-at-home mom, and my life wasn’t fully together yet,” she confessed.
“That’s mind-blowing too,” Daniel inserted. “Being a parent… a mother at that age is a phenomenal accomplishment,” he said with sincerity. “By what I’ve seen of your daughter, I gotta say, you did an outstanding job,” he complimented.
Jo felt heat rush to her cheeks, and she quickly ducked her head, avoiding his gray eyes that seemed to be able to see straight through her to her very soul. “Thank you,” she replied softly, touched by the admiration. “Did she grow up with you or her mother?” she asked, steering the conversation back into safer waters.
“Laura was eleven when we divorced. She lived with her mother for the first two years, and then she came to live with me after her mother remarried and left the country to start her new life.”
“That must have been hard on her,” Jo presumed.
The look in Daniel’s eyes and the way he grimaced confirmed that it had been. “It was,” he responded. “She was becoming this young woman with so many different emotions coming out of her, and I didn’t know how to help her. I had to take her to therapy, but that didn’t really help.” He sighed, his gaze turning back to the water.
Jo looked over at the man choosing to be vulnerable before her, and all she wanted was to wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him into her embrace to offer him comfort.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. I know what it’s like dealing with a highly emotional teenager,” she expressed, her eyes glazing over with sadness as she remembered her own past behavior.
She looked at the hand on top of her hand resting on the armrest of the chair, reveling in the warm tingle running up her forearm. She looked up at the owner of the hand, staring at her with gratitude.
“I like this,” he said simply.
Jo gave him a quizzical look.
“I like having you here, talking to you. I don’t know what it is, but I just feel this freedom around you, like I could tell you my deepest, darkest secret, and it would be safe with you.”
She widened her eyes at the revelation, and her heart started to beat erratically against her chest as she felt the warmth from his hand against hers traveling further up her arm toward her neck and cheeks.
“I know you said we can only be friends right now, and I respect that, but I just needed you to know how you make me feel.”
