Just One Kiss (Fool's Gold #10)(83)

Felicia stared at her. “Why?”

“I’ll bet you edit about half of what you say. I want to hear the whole thing. You’re so fascinating.”

Felicia shifted, obviously uncomfortable with the compliment. “I know I can be professorial.”

“A little, but it’s fun.” Noelle looked at Patience. “Let me know if you need any help getting things ready for the wedding. I’m at a slow stage with my business. I have the lease signed, but there’s about three weeks’ worth of remodeling that has to be done. I’ve started ordering my inventory, but some items are going to take six weeks. So I have time to run errands or whatever.”

“Thanks,” Patience said. “I’ll let you know. First my mom has to face reality. If she’s getting married in town, she’s going to have a guest list pushing two hundred people. I can’t wait!”

“It’s just plain romantic,” Noelle said with a sigh. “Finding love later in life.”

“It gives us all hope.” Isabel sipped her drink. “So, Patience, was Justice different than what you remembered?”

“His basic character is the same. He’s still sweet and funny.”

Felicia frowned. “Justice?”

“I know there are other sides to him, but I don’t see them as much.”

“Unless these two are keeping secrets,” Isabel said, “you’re going to have to have a relationship for all of us. My marriage disaster isn’t anything I want to risk repeating.”

“I’m recovering from a broken engagement,” Noelle said.

They all looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” Felicia said. “I didn’t know.”

“I hadn’t said anything to anyone. It sounds so sad. A broken engagement. Like it got dropped on the floor or something.”

Felicia picked up her drink. “I can’t bond on this subject. I haven’t been in any kind of romantic relationship and my sexual encounters have all been extremely short. I’m considering the possibility that I have responsibility in that beyond the barrier of my intelligence.”

“That you’re avoiding men who might want more from you?” Patience asked.

“Yes, and that I’m not putting myself in the appropriate social situations. I say I want to fall in love and have a family, but until I moved here, I hadn’t done anything to facilitate that occurring.”

Isabel leaned into Felicia. “We’ve all been idiots. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You see what you’ve been doing and now you can correct the problem.”

“I’m not always successful at self-correcting.”

“None of us are,” Noelle told her. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep on trying.”

* * *

“DO YOU know what you’re doing?” Lillie asked.

Her tone was gentle and her gaze warm and affectionate, but Justice still felt the sting of her words.

“I’m trying,” he muttered, carefully combing her hair.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, he thought grimly. One of the staff had called in sick, so Ava had gone in to help at the store. Patience had phoned and promised she would be back in time to get Lillie ready, but she was—he glanced at the clock—twenty minutes late. Apparently the last day of school was a big deal for a ten-year-old, so Justice had stepped in to fill the breach, so to speak. Or in this case, try to figure out how to make a fancy braid look right.

“I can show you on a doll,” Lillie offered.

He sectioned the hair, as he’d been shown and tried to manipulate it the way he’d seen Patience do it a hundred times. Her fingers flew through the process. It had looked so easy.

“If you and Mom get married, you need to think about having a boy,” Lillie told him. “You’d like that and you wouldn’t have to worry about his hair.”

He dropped his hands and stared at her, at her pretty face, at the affection in her eyes. He heard the acceptance in her words. She’d taken him into her heart, much as he suspected her mother had.

“Lillie,” he began, not sure what to say.

She flung herself at him, hanging on tight. He hugged her back, barely aware of the twinge in his midsection.

“You’d be a good dad,” she whispered in his ear.

The front door flew open.

“I know, I know,” Patience said as she hurried inside. “I was watching the clock. Then I turned around and I was late. I ran the whole way.”

She was flushed and panting, proof of her point. She hurried toward them, then paused. “You look so grown-up. When did that happen?”

Lillie smoothed the front of her pink-and-white dress and smiled. “Mom, we can talk about me growing up later. I need to get to school.”

“Right. French braid.”

Patience took the comb from Justice and smoothed her daughter’s hair. Seconds later her fingers were moving in rapid sequence. More quickly than he could have thought possible, it was done and she’d tied a pink ribbon on the end.

Patience rose and headed for the stairs. “Wait right there. I have something for you.”

Lillie turned to Justice. “Do you know what it is?”

“I don’t.”

“Mom gives the best presents. Just wait until Christmas. You won’t believe what you find under the tree.”