A Daddy for Jacoby(36)
His words stopped her. Words he hadn’t even planned to say, but now that he’d started, he kept talking. “I appreciate your hard work on this. Considering our somewhat tainted history, you could’ve—”
Leeann spun around to face him, her voice low. “I’m just doing my job.”
“Well, thanks anyway.”
Leeann nodded and left the office. Waiting a few minutes to give her a head start, Justin followed and ran into his sister in the hallway.
“So, how did it go with you and Leeann?”
“Ah, I’ll talk to you later, okay?” He looked at his watch. “I need to get to the school and pick up Jacoby.”
After a quick hug goodbye, Justin headed out to the parking lot. Even though he was running late, he stuck to the speed limit, despite the threat Leeann alluded to in this ongoing mess about Zoe Ellis or Susie Ellsworth or whatever her name was.
Minutes later, he parked outside the school. He got out of his truck and took a deep, cleansing breath. It was cool now that the sun had gone down, and he was anxious to find Jacoby in the crowd. Then he saw him racing toward him, his tattered pillowcase bouncing off one shoulder and papers in his hand.
Justin knelt as the boy careened into him. “Hey, slow down, buddy.”
“Dad! Dad! Guess what?” Jacoby jumped around with little-boy excitement. “Gina’s back in town!”
Was it less than an hour ago Justin had found out the same thing? “How do you know that?”
“Look at this!” Jacoby shoved a piece of paper in Justin’s face. “She’s doing a story hour at the town library. Tonight! Can we go? Huh? Huh? Can we?”
Chapter Eight
The familiar scent of clean male skin mixed with a hint of garlic and pine trees tickled Gina’s nose. It nudged out the sweet and sweaty smells of crayons and candy drifting up from the children sitting at her feet.
Justin was close by.
She could actually feel his presence. As romance-booky as that sounded. Of course, at last count, she’d consumed eight romance novels during her week in paradise and had an unfinished one tucked in her purse.
Once she, Barbie, Jeannie and Tina had settled into their seats on the plane, she’d pulled out an unfinished biography of one of her favorite English poets, but Barbie had snatched it out of her hands.
“Absolutely not,” her friend declared. “If you are going to read this week—and I’m sure you will—it’s only flirty and frisky novels for you!”
She’d then handed her a paperback with a man on the cover, headless but showing wide shoulders, a perfect set of six-pack abs and wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans that hugged him in all the right places.
Gina had immediately thought of Justin. Not good, considering getting away from him was the reason for her impromptu vacation.
The same night she’d raced out of Justin’s cabin after that heartbreaking kiss, Barbie had called offering her the last-minute vacancy on a trip to the islands. She’d jumped at the chance to put a few thousand miles between her and the sexy coworker-slash-new-father whose kisses were a hundred times better than anything she’d read over the last week.
Forcing her attention back to the open children’s book on her lap, Gina managed to get through the rest of the words on the page, despite the lower and huskier tone of her voice.
Her gaze scanned the kids in the children’s area as she turned the page, making eye contact with Jacoby in the back row. He gave a discreet wave. She winked in return. Behind him were a group of jean-clad legs, visible from the knees down, and a variety of work boots, sandals and cowboy boots.
So which of those legs belonged to Justin?
He wouldn’t just leave the little boy alone in the library, would he? Then again, maybe Justin wasn’t the one who’d brought Jacoby, which blew her “he’s close by” theory out of the water.
Maybe it was all in her head.
And her heart.
Gina steered her focus to the book again, losing herself in the story. The inflections she used in her voice added a bit of flair and drama to the words and the children sat forward, their faces reflecting delight at her theatrical approach.
She’d been surprised when her mother told her just last night as she got back from vacation that she’d volunteered Gina to take over the library’s story hour. But the girl who normally read to the kids needed emergency surgery, so Gina agreed.