Right Where We Belong (Silver Springs #4)(24)

“I’ll tell her.” Branson spoke over his shoulder as he ran back and opened the truck door to convey the message.

“Who was that?” Eli asked, but before Gavin could respond, Savanna called out a thank-you.

Although Gavin felt slightly self-conscious that he hadn’t yet combed his hair, and he didn’t have on a shirt, he strode out to have a word with her. “You don’t need me to go with you and help you load it in the first place, do you?”

“No,” she replied. “The guy I’m buying it from said he has friends who can help. I was just worried about how I’d get it off the truck once I returned, wanted to make sure you’d still be home and wouldn’t mind lending a hand.”

“I don’t mind at all,” he assured her.

Her gaze lowered to his bare torso before shifting to a spot behind him, and he turned to see that Elijah had followed him out. “This is my brother Eli. Eli, Savanna, my new neighbor.”

“Did you say neighbor? Out here?” Eli gestured at the wide expanse of raw land.

“I’m currently moving into the ranch house—or what’s left of it—next door,” she said. “But I never would’ve made it across the creek yesterday if not for your brother.”

Eli gave Gavin a playful shove. “I guess that means he’s good for something, huh?”

Her smile broadened. “He’s pretty handy to have around.”

Gavin felt the pull of attraction. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been more taken with a woman, not so quickly.

“He’s a real pain in the, um, neck,” Eli said, choosing his words carefully in deference to the children. “Don’t let him fool you.”

She leaned forward in an attempt to get a better look at Eli’s face. “I hope you don’t mind, but he signed you up to help me move a fridge.”

Eli shrugged. “Might as well make myself useful.”

“What about a stove?” Gavin asked. “You’ll need one of those, too.”

“That’ll be tougher to find. I’m not even sure if I should get gas or electric. I thought you might know.”

He nearly laughed. How she was going to go about remodeling the ranch house, he had no idea, but he sort of liked that she needed him. “Gas.”

“Got it. I’ll grab a microwave so we can get by in the meantime and hope to come across a gas stove. I appreciate the help.” She put the transmission in Drive. “If all goes well, and the fridge looks as good in real life as it does in the pictures I saw, I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”

“We’ll be here,” Gavin said.

As soon as she drove off, Eli nudged him. “Wow!”

Savanna’s smile had left Gavin a little dazed. “What?”

“The color of her hair is sort of unusual, but she’s striking.”

Gavin watched the moving van until it reached the highway. “Yeah. She’s pretty, all right.”

“So what’s going on? She married?”

“Divorced.” He thought of what her ex had done but chose not to reveal that information. Although he could trust Eli not to tell anyone else—except maybe Aiyana—opening his mouth felt disloyal somehow.

“Then why haven’t you mentioned her?”

“She’s just got here yesterday.”

“The same day you learned that Heather is pregnant.”

He let his breath seep out in a long, dejected sigh. “Yeah. Can you believe it?”

*

“Did you see all of Gavin’s tattoos?” Branson asked, his voice full of awe as they gathered as much speed as they could muster, given the limitations of the van.

Since Gavin had come out of the house without a shirt, Savanna couldn’t have missed his tattoos—or his bare chest. But she didn’t mind having seen that. She liked the way he looked. A lot. His brother was probably more classically handsome. With such dark hair and blue eyes, he reminded her of Elvis Presley, but she found Gavin’s less conventional looks more attractive. “I saw them,” she said.

“They went clear up to here!” Branson indicated his shoulder.

Alia, who was busy playing a game on Savanna’s phone, made no comment.

Curious to see what her son would say, Savanna glanced over at him. “Do you like tattoos?”

He seemed stumped by the question. His father had railed about the kind of “trash” that would mark up his or her body, so she knew Branson had to be remembering that. He also had to be thinking that maybe he no longer cared what his father thought about something as benign as tattoos, that maybe he’d venture to form his own opinion. “Do you?” he asked uncertainly.

Since she’d met Gavin, she did. He had to be the sexiest man she’d ever come across, tattoos and all, which was odd because if someone had asked her only a few days ago to describe the perfect man, she would not have described anyone who looked remotely like him. “I do,” she admitted. “Especially his. They suit him.” Gordon would’ve been shocked to hear those words come out of her mouth, but until now she’d never had strong enough feelings on the subject to contradict him when he criticized ink.

Gordon’s cutting remarks suddenly seemed highly ironic, though, considering what he’d done.