It was working like freaking gangbusters, if that was it.
But to figure out a strategy like that... damn. He mustreallywant her. Not only that, but he seemed together. And while every woman wanted to hear she’s beautiful in a man’s eyes, true seduction was all about making it clear that he saw her for who she truly was. That maybe he saw things that no one else saw. And liked them all. And wanted them all.
His intuition about who she was under the mom clothes, the sexual tension between them she could literally slice and serve like birthday cake, but which he patiently held in check, which made it all that much hotter—Gabe Caldera was playing a long game.
And she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so breathlessly, thrillingly uncertain.
Maybe when she was thirteen. She didn’t know how on earth she could afford to apportion any of her life over to being uncertain, when the most precious person in the world to her was sleeping in the next room, still clutching the stuffed cat her Uncle Jesse had bought her when she was three.
Eden rolled over.
She picked up her phone.
She sat there in the dark, clutching it, heart picking up a beat (“Oh, brother. Hearts don’t pick up a beat unless there’s aproblem, Eden.”—Dr. Jude Harwood), suspended in indecision.
If she did what she was awfully tempted to do right now, it was tantamount to telling Gabe that not only was his plan working, but that she was officially participating. She was buying in.
But was itreallyas profound as all that? It was just one day in her schedule, right? One teeny tiny change. It didn’t have to signify any kind of commitment.
She took a breath and dashed off the text to her mom.
Mom, I’ll pick up Annelise from school tomorrow on the way to some deliveries. Danny’s been dying to hold down the fort on his own and I’m going to give him a shot!
This wasn’tuntrue. Danny was dying to try everything in the world.
Eden would send Ray the parking monitor some flowers with a card that said, “Get well,” but might as well read “Thank you.”
Because she rememberedfull wellwho’d stepped into Ray’s shoes while he was recovering from gallbladder surgery.
Her mom, who ought to be asleep by now because her day started incredibly early but who was probably awake reading the latest un-put-downable Susan Elizabeth Phillips novel, immediately texted back a thumbs-up and a half dozen kisses and hugs. Three each for her and Annelise.
Chapter 7
At ten minutes to three, Gabe posted himself in front of the school in Ray’s absurd-but-deemed-necessary reflective vest and watched as mom after mom in car after car pulled up in front of the school—Suburbans, Explorers, Outbacks, sturdy, well-used, dust-powdered Hellcat Canyon SUVs. Most of the parents knew the pickup drill—where to line up in front of the school, how to enter the parking lot and circle out of it once their kids were safely collected and strapped in—but Ray’s job was to make sure no one went rogue and took cuts or got confused or ran over a little person.
Despite Eden’s speedy departure the other night, Gabe was feeling—possibly unreasonably—confident. All day.
At five minutes to three, just the slightest amount of doubt began to kick in.
So when the little white delivery van painted with a veritable garden of flowers pulled into the parking lot, it was all he could do not to fist pump.
He waited until Eden dutifully took her place in the queue.
She was the seventh car.
And then he strolled casually over and leaned down like he was about to issue a ticket.
Her window slid down.
She was wearing a green cardigan over a T-shirt that, if he was not mistaken, had a big cat face on it.
“...sing in the...” was how she greeted him.
“...shower.”
Delight and hilarity, and something more intense and abstracted, like she was picturing him doing it, slowly suffused her face. “You sing in the shower?”
“Like a canary with bronchitis.”