It's Only Love(16)

Smiling, he tugged on her hand. “Let’s get going to your parents’ place so I can talk to your dad about the work he wants done before dinner.”

Reluctantly, Ella let him help her up, but she wished they had nowhere to be so they could continue with the kissing. The kissing was good. Very, very good.

“Is it okay with your mom if I come to dinner?”

“Oh yeah. She makes enough to feed an army every week. I think my aunt Hannah and cousin Grayson will be there today, too. I heard he was in town visiting his mom this weekend.”

“I haven’t seen him in years. He’s in Boston, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did he ever get married?”

Ella pushed her feet into the moccasins that had fallen off when he carried her to the sofa. “Nope, but you can hardly blame him after what he went through with his parents.”

“No kidding.”

Ella’s uncle Mike had walked away from his wife and eight children when the older kids were in high school and the youngest ones still in elementary school. “A lot fell to Gray as the oldest. He really stepped up for his mom and siblings. He probably has zero desire to have his own family after all that.”

“Do they ever hear from their father?”

“Occasionally, but it’s nothing regular.”

“Can you imagine a man leaving his wife and children like that?”

“No man I know would do something like that, but then again, we never thought Uncle Mike would either. He loved family life and his kids and Hannah. They were a true love match, or so we thought.”

Gavin held her coat for her before donning his own coat. “Did you ever find out what went wrong?”

“Not really. My mom suspects he had some sort of breakdown or something happened with his job. But I’ve never heard the full story. I don’t know if even my mom has heard the whole thing, and Hannah is her sister.”

“And Hannah never remarried?”

“To be honest, I don’t think they ever got divorced.”

“Wow, and how many years ago was this?”

“Well, let’s see, Gray is the same age as Hunter and Hannah, and they’re going to be thirty-six in December, so almost twenty years ago, I’d say.”

“Twenty years. How’s it getting to be almost twenty years out of high school for us?”

“Don’t say us. I’m quite a bit younger than you.”

“Ha-ha,” he retorted. “Only a few years.”

“I’ve only been out of high school thirteen years, so speak for yourself.”

“I’m at seventeen, so not a geezer quite yet.”

“But getting closer every day.”

Laughing, he said, “You’re full of beans today, Ella. I like you that way.”

“Got to keep you on your toes.”

“That you do.” He held the passenger door to his truck for her and then leaned in to kiss her as he belted her in. “Kissing you is becoming my favorite thing to do.”

Ella ran her hand over the delicious stubble on his jaw. “Mine, too.”

He kissed her again. “To be continued. Later.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Mmm,” he said, his lips vibrating against hers, “me either.” He pulled away reluctantly, or so it seemed to her.

She watched him walk around the front of the truck and get into the driver’s side. It was such a strange feeling to be free to look at him any way she wanted, to let him see the full extent of her desire for him, to not have to hide it anymore the way she had for so long.

He backed out of her driveway and headed in the direction of her parents’ home. His hand found hers on the seat, and the brush of his skin against hers was all it took to set off a reaction that registered in all her most important places.

Good God . . . She had to get it together before she forgot her plans to be cautious, to take this slowly, to protect her heart. If all he had to do to make her forget about being careful was hold her hand, she was in bigger trouble than she’d thought.

After a quiet ride through Butler, they pulled into her parents’ driveway and their yellow labs, George and Ringo, came bounding across the yard to greet them. Ella got out of the truck and bent to give each dog some love. She couldn’t wait to have a home of her own someday so she could have dogs again. They’d always had dogs—all of them named John, Paul, George or Ringo—and Ella missed having pets, but that was the one thing her landlord didn’t allow.

“Where’s Mom and Dad?” she asked the dogs.

George barked and darted toward the house. The dogs rarely left her father’s side, so she took George’s word for it and followed her inside. Yes, George was a girl. It didn’t matter to Ella’s dad whether the dogs were male or female. They were all named after his favorite band of all time. He was a little over the top when it came to the Beatles, but his children indulged his obsession after being weaned on Beatles tunes growing up.

In the mudroom, Ella hung her coat and Gavin’s on the hook with her name on it. Will’s hook was to the left of hers and Charley’s to the right. The symbolic act of hanging Gavin’s coat on top of hers made Ella’s belly quiver with excitement and joy before she remembered that she was trying not to get ahead of herself. Whatever. What was that old saying about once the genie gets outside the bottle there’s no putting her back in? That about summed up her situation with Gavin. The genie was so far out of the bottle she’d never get back in at this rate.