But this moment, Trent wanted to memorize her face, breathe the scent of her skin, and take his time when he kissed her.

  “Okay, we’ll find him,” a seasoned voice said, and someone came out the doors about fifteen feet from where they stood.

  The sniffles and hiccups of a child crying came next, and Lauren turned to see who it was too. “Trent,” she said. “It’s Porter.”

  Trent realized it in the very moment she said his son’s name, and he hurried toward his son. “Porter?” he asked, reaching him and Mabel in only a few strides. “Where’s Aunt Eliza?”

  “Daddy.” Porter threw his arms around Trent’s neck, and Trent picked him up.

  “Where’s Aunt Eliza?” he asked again, wondering if he’d missed a call or a text. He looked at Mabel, and in the next moment, Lauren arrived, her hand rubbing Porter’s back.

  “I found him crying,” Mabel said. “He said he couldn’t find his aunt, and I told him we’d come find you. I didn’t think you’d left yet.”

  “No, we were just walking,” Lauren said, and Porter reached for her.

  Surprised, Trent slipped the boy from his arms to Lauren. He saw the shock on her face too, and then she got a good grip on him and patted his back. “It’s okay, Porter,” she said. “You found us.”

  Even Mabel was staring at Lauren like she’d sprouted horns. Trent snapped himself out of his stare-fest and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Let me call my sister. She’s probably freaking out too.”

  Sure enough, when Eliza answered, instead of hello, she said, “I can’t find Porter.”

  “I’ve got him. Mabel found him, and they found us.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” She told her husband they’d found him, and then she said, “Where are you?”

  “On the east side of the Mansion,” he said, not really wanting to have this conversation right now. He didn’t want to tell his sister—or anyone—that he’d been moments away from kissing Lauren. And if he’d acted faster, he probably would’ve gotten the deed done.

  No one could ever say Trent had acted without thinking, that was for sure.

  Fool, he thought as he reassured his sister that he’d take Porter home with him. He hung up, and said, “Let me help you down the path, Mabel.”

  She hooked her arm through his, and he looked at Lauren. “You okay here for a minute?”

  “Yes, go. Go.” She graced him with a smile, and as she held his son, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  He turned and walked with Mabel. “The party’s over, huh?”

  “It is for me,” she said, back to her somewhat crotchety self. “I’m old, you know. I can’t wear shoes like these for very long.”

  Trent chuckled and helped her down to the cottage at the end of the path. At the door, he said, “Well, it was a wonderful party. The Mansion is as beautiful as ever.”

  She paused and looked at him. “Your wedding was one of my favorites.”

  Trent’s throat tightened, and he looked away. “Thank you,” he said, unsure of what else to say.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get married again?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Mabel. I honestly don’t.”

  “Well, it’s good to be cautious,” she said. “Especially because of that beautiful boy up there.” She reached for the doorknob and opened the front door. She stepped through and turned back. “But that woman up there, holding that son of yours? She’s wanted to get married for as long as I can remember.”

  Trent blinked at her. “Really?” Lauren didn’t seem like the type of woman who’d spent her childhood envisioning her wedding day.

  “Don’t break her heart, Trent.”

  “I—”

  But Mabel turned around and walked inside, her sharp eyes the last thing Trent saw before the door swung closed. He stared at it for another couple of moments, wanting to complete his sentence.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he whispered to the wood. “If anything, she’ll break mine.” He looked up the hill, but Lauren and Porter couldn’t be seen beyond the rise. He went back that way, very ready to be out of his uniform.

  “Hey,” he said when he got to the Mansion and found Lauren and Porter sitting on the steps. “We ready to go?”

  “Yes.” Lauren groaned as she stood up, and Trent hurried forward to offer his hand to her as she wobbled on those heels. She held his hand as she reached down and took them off. “Can you give me a ride home?”

  “Of course. How’d you get here?” He reached for Porter’s hand too. “Come on, bud. Time to go home.” His son slipped his hand into Trent’s, and they went into the Mansion as Lauren said she’d walked up to her aunt’s to help her get ready.

  They caught the shuttle, and Trent made sure everyone got up and in the truck before he followed Lauren’s directions to get to her house.

  It sat back off the road on a street where only a few other houses were located, and Trent liked the privacy of it. “Stay here, bud, okay?” He got out and walked with Lauren toward her front door.

  “That was fun,” he said.

  “It was,” she agreed. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  If she wouldn’t smile at him like that, his pulse would stay at a normal rate, but there she was, gazing up at him with that gorgeous grin on her face.

  “So we’re okay?” he asked. “After my…confession?”

  “I’m okay. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” Trent said, squeezing her hand. “I’ll call you later?”

  She nodded, reached for the knob, and slipped into the house like smoke through his fingers. He went back to the truck, the heaviness of single parenthood descending on him when Porter scooted over and pressed right into his side. “Can we get ice cream, Daddy?”

  And Trent couldn’t say no.

  Chapter 12

  Lauren woke the next morning with the smell of Trent’s cologne in her nose. The sound of his voice in her ears. I feel way out of my league here.

  He was handsome in his uniform, and she loved his vulnerability too. “You’re already in too deep with him,” she told herself as she poured her morning coffee. It was clear he would be the one who decided how fast or slow they went, because she’d had a crush on him for years. A crush he hadn’t even known about.

  “He didn’t even remember you asking him out.” She sighed, added too much sugar to her caffeine, and went into the bathroom to pull her hair up. After all, just because it was Sunday didn’t mean she didn’t have work to do.

  She went into her backyard, noting that it needed some attention before the icy winter rains came. Next weekend, she told herself. With the build finished at Magleby Mansion, Lauren could get back to keeping up with her own life.

  Of course, there was the Festival of Trees, and she entered the wood shop determined to get twenty tree stands made that day. Every year, she thought she’d have enough, and she always ended up making dozens more at the last minute.

  Not this year, she told herself as she got down the safety glasses and pulled out her tape measure. The numbers, the cuts, the hammering kept her mind from focusing too much on Trent. Every time she stood to straighten her back or change the radio station, she allowed herself a moment to picture his eyes as he gazed at her in the gardens last night.

  He’d definitely wanted to kiss her. Had even moved to do it. She didn’t have to imagine what it would be like to have him cradle her face—he’d done that too. When her fantasies started to run away from her, she pushed them away, exhaled, and got back to work.

  By lunchtime, she had almost all twenty stands made and decided to call it a day. After all, she didn’t have to work seven days a week.

  The next day found her at Trent’s while he wasn’t there, measuring and calculating supplies. They texted a few times, all about business and what kind of wood and stain he wanted, and she went to the lumber yard and the hardware store and purchased everything she needed for the project.

  Just standing in his yard made her heart pitter-patter in her chest, and when she heard the slam of a door and the bark of a dog, she knew she’d get to see the man she’d been thinking about for so long.

  Porter arrived first, crashing through the gate with his backpack flailing on his back.

  “Hey, Porter,” she said, lowering her clipboard. She did like the boy, but she had no idea why he’d clung to her the way he had on Saturday. She’d never considered herself maternal in any way, and she’d never been all that nurturing, even to herself.

  “Lauren,” he said, panting. “We’re having Career Day at school next week.”

  She smiled at him as he climbed the back steps and sat down. “That’s great.” She tried not to look for his dad, but she couldn't help herself.

  Sure enough, Trent entered the backyard too, all four of his dogs flanking him. He spoke to them in a stern, quiet voice, and they sat. They watched her, but they listened to him. She still had supplies to check off and another load to bring in from her truck, but she couldn’t move. After all, the dogs weren’t moving yet.

  Trent met her eye and smiled. “Hey,” he said, starting toward her. One of the dogs whined, but he paused and shushed it. “You’re still here.”

  “I have everything,” she said. “Just unloading and checking everything off. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Something crossed his face, but Lauren couldn’t place it. A frown maybe? “Need help?”

  “Sure, there’s more in the truck.” All the lumber had been delivered from the yard, and she hadn’t had to unload that. “Is the wood okay where it is?” She’d had them stack it beside the fence, away from any of his bushes and flowers but still within her reach.

  He glanced at it, then his son, then her. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  “Great.” She walked toward him, hoping the slight tremble of anticipation of touching him didn’t show in her fingers or her step.

  “Let me get Porter settled with a snack,” he said as she approached. “And get these dogs out of my hair. Then I’ll come help you.”

  “All right.” She passed him, wondering what kind of game they were playing. Whatever it was, she liked it. He caught her fingers with his as she passed, a brief touch that was there one moment and gone the next.

  “Can I pat the dogs?” she asked, pausing in front of them.

  “Oh, all right,” he said with a tease in his voice. He barked a command at them, and they all stood, their tails wagging.

  Lauren laughed as she bent down to scrub them all down, one of them licking her arm and another barking in a playful way.

  “Tornado,” Trent admonished. “Quietly.”

  The dog didn’t quiet, and Trent called them over to him, directing them into a kennel while Lauren watched him. He didn’t even have to touch the dogs to get them to do what he wanted, and when he turned back, she ducked her head and hurried out of the yard.

  She waited at her truck, checking the supplies there before taking them back, something she didn’t usually do. But if she could watch Trent use his muscles to haul boxes of nails and cans of stain, she was going to.

  He came out the front door several minutes later, an apology quickly following. “Apparently, we need more vanilla wafers.” He rolled his eyes. “Porter can be picky sometimes.”

  “Well, vanilla wafers are delicious.”

  Trent chuckled as he arrived truckside, easily sweeping one arm around her and pulling her into an embrace. “It’s good to see you.”

  “What’d you do yesterday?” she asked. They hadn’t texted much, other than about his schedule for today and if she could get into the backyard when he wasn’t home.

  “Oh, took the dogs running on the beach. Took Porter to the drive-in over in Lakeside.”

  “Sounds fun,” she said. “I haven’t been to a drive-in movie in years. I didn’t even know there was one around.”

  “It’s about a thirty-minute drive to get there,” he said, stepping back but keeping his hand on her waist. “We should go sometime.”

  She smiled up at him. “I’d like that.”

  He nodded and looked in the back of her truck. “Okay, so let’s get this unloaded.” They worked together, taking several trips and making easy conversation as they moved the rest of the supplies into the backyard. He closed the gate after the last load and caught her hand again.

  “Thanks, Lauren,” he said, bending down and sweeping his lips right across her forehead. “I’d ask you to stay for dinner, but I’m not cooking tonight, and I don’t feel much like goin’ out.”

  “Want me to run into town and grab something?” Did she sound too desperate to stay? She knew Porter liked pepperoni pizza and chicken cheese bread. She knew where to get one of those.

  “If you want.” Trent yawned. “But you don’t have to. I’m tired. I won’t be good company.”

  “Then the dogs will keep my company,” she said. “I’ll run down to Duality. It’s five minutes away. What does Porter like there?”

  “The mini tacos,” he said, a smile brightening his handsome face and lighting his eyes from within.

  “And you?” she asked.

  “Surprise me.”

  Oh, that was dangerous, and Lauren’s heartrate kicked up a notch. She left him standing by the gate and got in her truck, thinking about how Trent had liked the prime rib and mashed potatoes at the Mansion.

  She kicked herself for being so resistant to listening to Aunt Mabel talk about his first wedding. She could probably get a clue from that. No seafood, she knew that.

  Before she knew it, she pulled into Duality and took the last spot. With everyone on their way home from work, she’d be lucky if there was any hot food left. But she did manage to get two boxes of mini tacos, as well as two of the tater tots—her favorite.

  Trent had ordered a pastrami sandwich last week at The Anchor, and he liked the thin potato chips. She grabbed a couple of bags of those and wandered past the pizzeria. The barbecue chicken looked good, and she made a quick decision by grabbing it.

  She loaded up with drinks and got herself back to Trent’s immaculately landscaped house. Inside, she expected the toys, the shoes, and the dogs, and she got all three.

  She also found Trent sitting at the table with Porter, both of them looking at a worksheet like it was written in Japanese. “Food,” she said, gladly handing over the bag with the bottled drinks in them to Trent.

  She laid everything out on the counter just as Porter said, “Done, Daddy,” and he came over to Lauren. “Did you get the mini tacos?”

  “Two boxes, bud.” She smiled at him and handed him one. “How’s the window frame coming?”

  “Great. Wanna see it?”

  “Sure I do.” She took her box of tots with her and followed the boy down the hall to his bedroom. He showed her how he’d made all the corners fit together, and Lauren complimented him on a job well done.

  Back in the kitchen, she found both Trent and the pizza gone, and she wandered into the living room where he’d settled. She sat beside him on the couch and he offered her a piece of pizza.

  She took it and they ate, and while there weren’t any earth-shattering secrets spilled, Lauren felt comfortable in his presence, his home, with his son and his dogs. And when he started breathing deeper, she got up, took the pizza box back into the kitchen, and helped Porter get into bed.

  On her way out, she paused and gazed down at the most beautiful man she’d ever met, falling a little deeper in love with him while he slept. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head and then snuck quietly out the door.

  “Hey, Mom,” Lauren said when her mom answered.

  “Lauren, how are you? How was the unveiling? We’re sorry we couldn’t make it. Your dad’s not been feeling well.”

  The unveiling was a couple of weeks old now, and Lauren only had one more day to wait until the applications for the Festival of Trees would be delivered to her. She’d taken two more jobs, and they were interior remodels, thankfully, as the November weather started to worsen.

  “It was great,” she said, fiddling with a pencil on her countertop. “I called, because I have a question about…something.”

  “What is it?”

  She’d been spending her days working on the kitchen remodel at the Wheeler farm, and her afternoons with Porter as she built Trent’s deck. They shared almost every evening meal together, unless he had a meeting or she had to attend to Aunt Mabel.

  “It’s about...” Lauren couldn’t get herself to say it.

  “About what?” her mom asked. “Lauren, you’re scaring me.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I’m fine. I’ve been seeing someone.”

  “Oh.” No squeal of joy. No happiness. No surprise either. It was almost a defeated sound.

  “He’s a nice guy, Mom.”

  “That’s what you said about Rick.”

  Lauren nodded, though they weren’t in a face-to-face conversation. “I know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Trent Baker. He used to live in Seattle.”

  “Mm,” her mom said, obviously not caring about his former residence.

  “We’re working together on the Festival of Trees. He has a six-year-old son.”

  “Lauren.” Now her mom’s voice held plenty of warning.

  Lauren didn’t need her mother’s approval. Neither of her parents had been particularly supportive when she’d changed her major to construction management, but she’d done it anyway. It had taken a couple of years, but they’d come around, and they’d never stopped loving her.

  But for this, she desperately wanted her mom to approve of her and Trent’s growing relationship. Why, she wasn’t sure. Probably because she’d made such a mess of the last serious relationship she’d been in.

  “I haven’t told him about Rick yet,” she said.

  “Are you changing for him?” her mom asked. “Because Lauren, he should love you for who you already are.”

  “I know that, Mom.”

  “I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “You won’t,” she said. “He’s a great guy, Mom. I swear. I’m…wondering if you guys might be able to come for Christmas. Aunt Mabel wants to do a family thing at the Mansion, and the Festival of Trees will be done by then, and winter is my slowest season.” She spoke in a huge rush, glad Aunt Mabel had suggested hosting Christmas dinner at the Mansion.