“I know you, Hailey,” the woman told her. “If you like the guy, you would definitely find a way to fit him into your schedule.”
“Ah, you give me too much credit, Maryanne,” Hailey told the woman as she began to briskly walk away from her friend.
“Do I?” Maryanne called after her.
Hailey didn’t answer her. But she smiled as she kept on walking.
One hour closer to her target.
Chapter Eleven
She had told Dillon that she would be ready at 6:30 a.m. Although she was carefree to a fault, Hailey had made it a point never to keep anyone waiting. Which was why the next morning she was ready by 5:30 a.m.
The last thing she wanted to do was take a chance on having Dillon arrive early, then decide to leave because he didn’t want to wait around while she was getting dressed. Not that Dillon struck her as being the impatient type, but the truth of it was, Hailey was not all that sure exactly what he was.
While she had to admit that Dillon seemed to be acting less like he was carrying around the weight of the world on his shoulders than when she had first met him, she still sensed that there was something reticent about him. Like he was deliberately holding something back.
But as to what, she didn’t even have a clue.
Hailey decided that the easiest explanation was probably that he had been burnt in a relationship by some self-centered, unfeeling woman. As a result, Dillon behaved far more guarded about his emotions than the men she’d known in the past.
But, she concluded, all that did was present her with a challenge. A challenge she was more than happy to take on and vanquish.
If that meant getting up slightly before any self-respecting rooster woke up, well so be it. It was a small sacrifice to make.
To keep her mind off how terribly early it actually was and how much she really wanted to go back to bed, after she showered and dressed for the day at Dillon’s family ranch, Hailey busied herself preparing breakfast for the two of them.
Not just a simple breakfast, but one that she felt confident any diner on the East Coast would have been more than happy to put on their counter. She was motivated by his apparent attachment to the state where he had originated from: Florida.
To that end, Hailey made scrambled eggs, toast, bacon and sausage. She also made pancakes and waffles. By the time she finished, there was definitely enough on the table to feed a small army. She willingly admitted that she had indulged in overkill, but she had done it to give Dillon his choice of anything he might have wanted for the first meal of the day.
In order to ensure that it all kept hot, she put everything on a warming tray that she usually kept tucked away for use during the holidays.
Hailey had just finished arranging the pancake stacks on two different platters when she heard the doorbell ring. She automatically glanced at her watch.
Surprisingly, Dillon was ten minutes late.
Putting the platters where she wanted them, she hurried over to the front door.
Then, taking a deep breath and bracing herself, she smiled and threw the door open.
“Hi,” she said, greeting him. “You’re later than you said you’d be. I thought that maybe you had changed your mind.”
“I would have called if I’d changed my mind,” he assured her. “I just thought I’d let you sleep in a few extra minutes.” He laughed softly to himself, acknowledging his mistake. “I guess I should have known better.”
And then he stopped, taking in a deep breath and inhaling a number of different aromas, all delicious. He looked at Hailey quizzically.
“Am I interrupting something? What is that fantastic smell?” he wanted to know.
Pleased by his reaction, she smiled. “Breakfast. Come,” Hailey coaxed, beckoning for him to follow her as she led the way into the kitchen.
“You made breakfast?” he asked, surprised. He hadn’t expected her to do that. He had just thought he was coming by to pick her up.
“I had to,” she answered, then deadpanned, “The elves have gone on strike.”
He wasn’t prepared to see all the food that was laid out on the counter. Dillon was clearly caught off guard. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. And then, when he found his tongue, he told her, “You didn’t have to do all this.”
“Well, once I got started, I kind of did,” she told him. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like to eat and I thought it safer just to give you a wide choice.” She gestured toward the counter. “Take your pick,” she invited, pleased by the stunned expression on his face.
The sight of all that food really did catch him by surprise, especially in light of what he said in answer to her invitation.
“I usually just have coffee,” he told her.
“Oh.” Hailey struggled not to sound as disappointed as she felt. However, Dillon could clearly hear it in her tone.
Thinking of all the effort she had put into this breakfast—effort she had obviously exerted because of him—Dillon quickly backtracked. “But everything looks so good, I can’t just walk away from it.” He looked at her, giving her a wide smile. “I’ll have to taste everything.”
She didn’t want him forcing himself to eat on her account. “That’s all right, you don’t have to.”
“Oh, but I want to,” he insisted.
Dillon felt that although he might not be up on his dating etiquette, he was definitely up on his manners. He was convinced that it would be bad form to have her go to all this trouble and then have him just take a pass on all of it. Besides, even though he wasn’t hungry to begin with, he had to admit that this food did smell pretty damn tempting. He would have had to be dead not to have that aroma arouse his appetite.
Dillon’s eyes met
