No One But You (Silver Springs #2)(63)

Sadie allowed her gaze to stray to Dawson. Jayden had hid again and was waiting quietly to be found, but Dawson wasn’t going after him. She’d thought, when everything grew quiet, that he must be on his phone, but he was looking at her, and the expression on his face surprised her.

“I think someone else likes the way they look, too,” Jessica teased, but that only made everything grow awkward very fast. Dawson instantly shuttered the appreciation that’d been so apparent a moment before and pretended, like Sadie did, that he hadn’t even heard what Jessica said and started patting the clothes rack Jayden was in as if he didn’t already know Jayden was there.

“You should get them,” he said once he’d flushed Jayden out.

She was still deliberating in front of the mirror. Together with the blouse, she’d be spending close to $100, even with the discount. That sounded like a fortune to her. She’d had to watch every penny for so long. But she couldn’t complain about the expense, not when Jessica was giving her such a good deal, and she needed clothes right away. She’d been trying to figure out how to say no so that she could visit a thrift shop instead—she’d gotten really good at finding gems other people had given away—but with Dawson supporting Jessica, she felt cornered. Suppressing the nagging worry that she’d need the money she was spending, she smiled. “Okay. I guess I will.”

When she came back out of the dressing room, she found Jayden sitting on Dawson’s shoulders. “Look, Mommy! See how tall I am?”

At least he seemed to be having a wonderful time... Briefly, she wondered why his own father couldn’t make him this happy.

“You’d better get some underclothes,” Dawson said before she could approach the register. “You need that most of all, right?”

She didn’t even get the chance to answer before Jessica jumped in. “Oh, I’ve got the perfect thing!”

The shop owner went to the lingerie section, where she picked up a pair of champagne-colored lace panties with a matching bra that’d been on display.

Sadie had never seen anything so beautiful and delicate, but that was what told her it would be out of her price range.

“Isn’t this gorgeous?” Jessica said. “We have it in a small, too, which would be your size.”

Sadie opened her mouth to try to direct Jessica to something more affordable. She didn’t even need to see the price tag to know that set wasn’t for her. But Dawson spoke before she could formulate the words. “We’ll take those, too,” he said and pulled out his wallet.

One carefully manicured eyebrow slid up on Jessica’s lovely face. “You’re taking care of the bill?”

He didn’t answer that question, either. He just handed her his credit card, as if that should speak for itself, and she shot Sadie a knowing smile. Dawson had been watching Sadie’s son while she tried on clothes, and now he was paying for what she’d selected—was even buying her underwear. Sadie knew how it appeared.

While Jessica took her time wrapping everything in perfumed tissue paper and putting it all in a pretty sack with a pink ribbon, Dawson started out ahead of her. Not wanting to be far behind his new hero, Jayden hurried after him, which gave Sadie a moment alone with the shop owner. “We’re just friends,” she said, hoping to set Jessica straight.

But Jessica wasn’t buying it. “A man doesn’t look at a friend like that,” she said with a laugh.

*

As they picked up a few things for Jayden at the secondhand shop and then drove home, Dawson kept picturing Sadie as she’d probably look in the lacy underwear and bra set he’d just purchased. He tried to distract himself by turning on the radio. When that didn’t work, he started going over everything he had yet to do today. And when that didn’t work, he tried to think about whether or not he’d find the man who might’ve seen the hitchhiker he’d picked up the night his parents were killed. Usually, the murders triggered enough anger to drown out any other emotion, even sexual desire, but the vision of Sadie in those snug-fitting jeans had elicited such a deluge of testosterone it was hijacking his brain. The bra and panty set only made matters worse.

He was so consumed with fighting a constant erection it took him a while to realize Sadie hadn’t said anything since they left the nice-twice shop.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing over at her.

She stared straight ahead. “Yeah. Fine. Thanks for fronting the money back there—for both of us. I’m grateful.”

“And yet...you don’t sound grateful. You sound upset.”

She checked to see what Jayden was taking in—Dawson saw her do it. But the boy was so absorbed in playing with the measuring tape he’d found in the truck he wasn’t tracking the conversation. “I’m not upset, exactly. It’s just...that boutique we went to for me was expensive,” she said. “And I have a lot of bills to cover.”

He’d known her situation when he stopped at The Mint Julep, which was probably what was bothering her. “You need clothes,” he pointed out.

“I know, but there are other places to buy them. I could’ve gotten mine secondhand, just like what we did for Jayden.”

“There’s nothing like that here for adults.”

“There’s one in Santa Barbara.”

“You were planning to drive to Santa Barbara today?”