No doubt, she’d scared him away with her revelation about the baby. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing given her pregnancy and her need to turn a new page in her life. She was ready to devote her heart and her time to her child.
So why was she still thinking about how Vaughn’s fingers had felt, sifting through her hair, stroking lightly down her neck? How his mouth had molded to hers gently, like he was tasting something precious?
Yanking the safety goggles the rest of the way off her head, she got the band snagged in her hair. With a curse, she stepped over to the window so she could see better to untwine the tiny snarl.
Outside, a dark gray pickup truck was backing into her driveway. With the tailgate down, tree limbs spilled from the cargo bed, a red ribbon tied around the longest end, the whole load strapped down and neatly clamped. A dog’s nose poked out of the partially open window, as if to catch the scent of new surroundings.
Vaughn and Ruby had arrived.
A ridiculous jolt of excitement chased through Abigail even though she had just finished telling herself to draw boundaries with the sexy doctor. She carefully freed the knot and the safety googles from her hair. Then, setting down the eyewear, she caught herself pausing for a quick glance in the mirror.
Damn it.
Not allowing herself any time for primping, she went straight outside in time to see Vaughn open the door for his dog, leash in hand. Ruby hopped down the running board and onto the ground, wearing her service-dog vest.
“I hope it’s not too late for a delivery,” Vaughn called, reaching into the truck to retrieve two brown paper bags. “I brought you some dinner for a bribe.”
The bags were emblazoned with the logo for the Silver Saddle, the bar and tapas restaurant inside the Bellamy, Royal’s new five-star resort. Abigail had never felt like she had the budget to indulge in any of the restaurants on the property, and her taste buds anticipated the treat as much as her rumbling stomach.
What a thoughtful gesture. Her heart squeezed tight to this new evidence of Vaughn’s warmth and generosity.
“Since when do you need to bribe women into accepting gifts from you, Dr. Chambers?” she teased, hoping to keep things lighter between them as she stepped toward the truck bed and ran a hand over one of the gnarled pecan-tree branches. “I can’t believe you loaded all of this up today. You must have been working since the moment I left your house.”
“I didn’t mind. It was a good day for a project.” He paused as another, smaller pickup truck pulled in behind him, taking up all of Abigail’s small driveway. More tree limbs spilled from the second cargo bed. “That’s my groundskeeper’s sons. They gave me a hand with it.”
Overwhelmed at the thoughtfulness of the gesture, Abigail was having a hard time holding on to the boundaries she’d planned to draw. Especially as two grinning young men sprang from the second pickup, asking where to unload the limbs.
“This is Micah and Brandon.” Vaughn made the introductions and let Abigail show the men where to lay the pieces, in a covered drying rack she’d built on the side of the house for that purpose.
“Should we give them a hand?” she asked him while the workers began unbuckling the harnesses on the first load.
Ruby stood at Vaughn’s feet, watching along with them.
“Nah, we’d only get in their way. Those two are on a mission to earn extra cash for their own landscaping business.” Vaughn shook his head with a laugh. “I can’t keep them busy enough.”
“I’m thrilled,” she told him honestly, watching the drying rack begin to fill with pieces of wood for future projects. Regardless of the reservations she had about getting closer to Vaughn, she couldn’t deny that he’d gone above and beyond to help her. “The installation at the hospital is really going to exhaust my store of raw materials, so this couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“My pleasure.” His smile, when he chose to wield it, could melt polar ice caps. “And I hope you don’t think it was presumptuous of me to bring dinner. Honestly, I was starving by the time we loaded up the trucks, and I figured you might be hungry, too, after all the time we spent outdoors today.”
She wondered about that, sensing there might be more to it given the way he’d seemed to retreat after the kiss. Was this a simple olive branch to start over as friends? Or could that kiss have meant something more to him, too?
“I think it’s very kind of you.” Abigail hadn’t eaten, either. She’d been too busy trying to distract herself from thoughts of the sexy doc by immersing herself in her work. Now, she couldn’t help but think how much different her life would be if her baby had been fathered by someone like Vaughn. Someone thoughtful and caring. “After spending the first few months of my pregnancy feeling tired and depleted, my appetite has recently returned with a vengeance.”
She figured it couldn’t hurt to remind him of her baby, and where her allegiance would remain. She led him and Ruby through the house to the backyard patio, where a tiny flagstone courtyard was surrounded by plants and trees. While Vaughn began unboxing the meal, she retrieved plates and silverware from the house, along with cups and a pitcher of water. On her last trip, she remembered a bowl of water for Ruby and the matches for her outdoor lanterns.
A few minutes later, they sat across from one another at her wrought iron café table, enjoying the wealth of food Vaughn
