Dillon looked down at her. “He’s going to be insufferable.”
Tessa smirked. “I predict he’s going to ask you, within forty-eight hours of arriving at your house, what your intentions are toward me.”
“I’ll tell him my intentions are entirely honorable.”
“Rats. I was hoping they were entirely dishonorable.”
“Tessa Lawrence!”
“Dillon Steele.”
He shook his head and pulled her more tightly against him.
“I should warn you,” she said into his shirt. “Iris Green filmed the talent show today.”
“I noticed the camera.”
“I was going to send the video to the memory care home where my grandfather lives. He won’t remember he watched it. But I spoke with the head nurse and she said the staff will play it for him on his good mornings.”
He responded dryly, “If you’re lucky, your mother will be there one of those times to see it and have heart failure.”
Tessa burst out laughing. “What I wouldn’t give to see that!”
Dillon said jokingly but meant it in all seriousness, “I’ll call the nursing home tomorrow and ask the staff to be sure to play it the next time she visits him.”
“Note to self. Don’t answer any phone calls from my mother for at least the next six months.”
They smiled at each other in mutual amusement.
Eventually, Tessa said, “My grandfather used to love listening to me practice violin when I was Makayla’s age. I thought . . . even if he can’t hold onto it, the watching itself counts as some small part of him remembering me.”
His arms tightened around her. “It absolutely does.”
His cheek came to rest against her temple. “I’m sorry he doesn’t know who you are.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll go with you to meet him sometime, if you want.”
She hadn’t realized, until she heard the words, how badly she’d wanted someone to offer that. “I’d like that.”
He stayed for dinner.
She made grilled cheese sandwiches because the day called for something easy and fun. When she got distracted by Hamlet demanding supper and nearly scorched the first sandwich, Dillon took the spatula away from her and finished cooking them himself.
Makayla came in flushed and dirty and starving and ate two sandwiches in five minutes flat. They sat at the kitchen table Mick had built and they passed each other ketchup for the French fries, while Hamlet sat under Makayla’s chair gobbling the crusts she snuck him. The talent show was discussed in great and exhausting technical detail by Makayla, who narrated every measure of the fiddle break to Dillon as if he hadnt been there and seen it himself.
He listened to every word.
When Makayla finally broke off, mid-sentence, into a yawn that nearly knocked her off the chair, Dillon volunteered to clean up the kitchen while Tessa put her to bed. Tessa followed Makayla upstairs and hung up her recital clothes while Makayla got into pajamas.
It had been a while since she’d tucked in Makayla, and it was lovely to pull the blankets over her and sit on the edge of the bed wish her sweet dreams.
Makayla, half asleep already, said, “Mom?”
“Mm-hm?”
“Is Dillon going to be here in the morning?”