He smiled and said, “Not to worry. We’ll get it all sorted out.”
“Glad to hear that,” she said. “I feel like I need to do something today. I’m just getting upset.”
He reached out and gently stroked his thumb across her cheekbone. “What happened?” She shook her head, but he was firm. “Tell me,” he said.
“My sister called, telling me that my mother was trying to get a hold of George,” she said. “And get this. To tell him that I wanted to get back together with him.”
He stared at her in shock. “Your mother doesn’t understand boundaries, does she?”
“No, and I’m obviously not very impressed with her antics. Apparently she saw a report on the news about a stalker in the neighborhood.”
“Did you tell her that George was dead?”
She winced. “I know we haven’t confirmed it,” she said, “but I was so mad that I did tell her, yes.”
He just nodded, wrapped his arms around her, and folded her up against his chest. She snuggled in close and allowed him to comfort her for a moment. It felt so damn good just to be held, just to know she wasn’t alone.
“Do you want to go somewhere in the meantime?” he asked. “Like the park?”
Immediately Danny turned to look at her and called out, “Park! Park!”
Kona barked twice too, her tail wagging, as if she understood the concept.
Jessica smiled. “Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” she said. “We could go to the park for a few hours and then head straight to your grandparents’ place.” She paused, checking her watch. “That’s more than a few hours, but I could pack up some sandwiches and some fruit and some bottled water to take with us. They have picnic tables there, and we could have a light lunch to tide us over from breakfast until dinner.” She smiled and waved a hand at Kona. “And enough for Kona too.”
Kona yipped and wagged her tail.
“If Danny gets tired,” she said, “we can always come back here for him to have a nap before we head out to the grandparents’ house.”
Greyson laughed, patting the dog, smiling at Jessica. “That works,” he said. “That definitely works.” So that’s what they did.
A few hours of escapism, getting to know each other and just having fun, showed what a good man he was with Danny. She couldn’t imagine it being any better. She didn’t know if that would change over time. Would it improve or get worse? She didn’t have a clue because she had very little experience with men and no experience at all with men and children interacting. Even growing up, all her experiences with men were of the short-term variety that her mother engaged in.
The one thing Jessica didn’t want to do was become her mother. That would be awful. Yet her attraction to Greyson had been pretty quick. She knew any attempt on her part to dispute the reality that something special was between them in such a short span of time would be a flat-out lie. Something special was definitely here, and she really wanted to see where it was going.
She laughed as Greyson had Danny in the big round swing, gently pushing him back and forth, Kona right beside them, wherever Danny was.
It was pretty amazing to even be in this situation with him and Kona right now. Her men were pretty damn special, both of them. Immediately she realized what she just thought. She had to smile. Her next thought was, And Kona and I are pretty damn special females too.
After the swing, her guys ran to the teeter-totter, with Greyson holding on to Danny, while she joined them on the other side. Danny was having a blast, Kona giving yips of happiness too. And then someone had given her a balloon. She handed it over to Danny, and he ran and laughed. He fell a couple times and looked like he might want to cry, but Kona was there first, then Greyson was right behind, scooping Danny up, laughing, and helping him run again. All in all, it was a great time. Those hours seemed so full of fun and laughter, after these last few weeks of tension, and they passed much too quickly.
She smiled when it was time to go. “I didn’t think something like today was possible,” she said. “It was really lovely.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” he said. “I’m really glad we had this time together, just us, free from our troubles for a while.”
“I know. It was great.”
They were back at home in no time to drop off the lunch leftovers, as they readied to leave again. She quickly buckled Danny in and then got into the driver’s seat. “Where to, Mr. Wants Me to Meet His Grandparents?” she asked, teasing.
He gave her directions, and they backed out of the garage. The one thing she noticed that put a reality check on their excursion to the park was the fact that Greyson had kept Kona on alert at the park, and his own gaze was ever watchful. Even as they now left her driveway, he was searching for faces, for vehicles, for anything out of the ordinary.
When she pulled onto the main highway, she asked, “Well? Are we all good?”
“I think so,” he said, “It feels like we are.”
“Good,” she said, “because I really don’t want to bring danger to your grandparents’ door.”
When they arrived at his grandparents’ place, Greyson didn’t even get a chance to open his car door before both his grandfather and his grandmother were out on the front steps with big grins on their faces. Leo milled around their feet barking happily.
Jessica looked over at him and said, “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right,” he said. “They’re definitely eager to meet you.”
She got out of the car and focused on unbuckling Danny from his car seat. As soon as she had that done and held him almost
