His gaze slowly moved from her chest to her eyes. “You still owe me a kiss, remember?”
Had she agreed to that? The beer made that a little unclear. But Josh was a damned good kisser, so what the heck. “Fine. Get it over with.”
He slid his big hands on either side of her face and slowly drew her closer. His warm breath on her lips made her part hers in anticipation. She closed her eyes, hating how much she wanted that one last kiss from him.
When his thumb gently caressed her lower lip, she opened her eyes and stared into his darkened ones. “What are you waiting for?”
“I’d rather kiss you when you’ll remember it. Night, Meg.” His chaste kiss to her forehead was like a bucket of cold water, dousing her smoldering desires.
It was probably for the best. In her current state, she wasn’t sure she could have said no if he’d asked for more. That he didn’t ask earned him a point.
As Josh walked out the door he said, “I’m looking forward to the fund-raiser tomorrow. And to meeting Haley.”
Meeting Haley? “Wait a minute. I didn’t . . .”
But Josh was already gone, the sneaky bastard. She was taking that point back.
He’d probably gotten her all worked up on purpose. He had her practically begging him to kiss her, and then he’d dropped his bomb. That much hadn’t changed about him. It had always been a challenge to stay a step ahead of him. It was what she secretly liked the most about Josh.
She flopped back onto the bed and sighed. Now that Amber had spilled the beans, Haley was just going to keep asking about Josh until she met him.
How was she going to tell Haley about him? What was she going to tell Haley about him? Worse, what if Haley became attached to him before Meg sent him away at the end of the summer?
What a freakin’ mess.
Trudging up the stairs to her new home’s attic with Haley in tow set off jackhammers in Meg’s skull. She and Haley should be in church like all good Andersons were supposed to be on Sunday mornings, but the enthusiastic way the preacher tended to deliver his sermons, at decibels that shook the rafters, would have surely made her head explode.
Her dad and the Three Amigos would give her a hard time about skipping her first week back, but she wanted the time to prepare Haley for meeting Josh.
And that’s what she should be doing, but the right words weren’t materializing in her aching head. So she’d sort through some boxes and hopefully some kind of epiphany would strike.
The big, light-filled attic held tons of boxes, mostly filled with her grandparents’ junk. Her dad must have thrown it all up there after her mom’s mother died and locked the door before he rented the place out. She needed to get rid of most of it so she could make the space into a kids’ loft for her guests. Children were small enough to fit under the sloping roof on the sides, and they’d love lying in bed and peering out at the lake and at the animals in the trees at eye level from the third-floor perch.
Haley’s sudden squeal of delight sent hot daggers into Meg’s eyeballs. “What’d you find, Bug?”
Haley ran toward her with a framed photo and plopped onto her lap. Pointing everyone out with her chubby little finger, she said, “Mommy, your daddy, Grandma, a lady, a baby, and a doggy!”
Meg studied the picture. She’d never seen it before. “You’re right, that’s Grandma, my dad, and my other grandma you never met, but that isn’t me, it’s my mom. I’m the baby in the picture.” Her mom couldn’t have been much older in the photo than Meg currently was. She hadn’t realized just how much she resembled her mother until now. Her dad had refused to keep any of her mother’s pictures in the house after she’d died, so Meg hadn’t seen many over the years.
Haley looked up and her forehead scrunched. “Where’s my daddy?”
It was the second time Haley had asked since Amber had taken it upon herself to let Haley know about Josh. Probably as good a time as any to have the talk. “Actually, your father is staying at the hotel right now. He’s very excited to meet you.”
“Where’s he been?”
Good question. Meg wasn’t absolutely sure of the answer. “He’s been working. We’ll probably see him at the fund-raiser later today.”
“Will he live at our house now?”
“No. Not all daddies live with mommies. But he’s going to be here visiting for the summer.”
“’Kay.” Haley pointed at the picture again. “What’s the doggy’s name?”
Evidently that was all Haley wanted to know about Josh. For now. “Brinkley. He was the best dog ever.”