She’d never told a man this before, hadn’t even come close to letting one in enough to speak about family secrets. If someone had told her a week ago she’d be spilling her guts to the cocky man who owned the auto shop, she never would have believed it.
“Why do you think she stays?”
It was the question she’d asked herself a thousand times over the years. “He always makes sure to tell her how much he loves her. Even though we all know it’s a big fat lie.”
* * *
Zach Sullivan was pissed off. Beyond angry. If her father wasn’t 2,500 miles away, he’d be hunting him down to pound him into a wall.
No wonder Heather wouldn’t take a chance on being with him even in the short term, if all she knew were “charming” men who lied through their teeth to her and her mother. It killed him to think of her as a young girl stuck in the middle of all that.
Seeing the virtually untouched food on their table, the waiter came over with a worried expression. “Does everything taste okay?”
Zach watched Heather pin on a false smile. “It’s great, thanks.” She slid her fork into a chunk of chicken, but she didn’t put it in her mouth, just pushed it around on her plate, her mind clearly elsewhere.
Thinking about what a dick her father is, he guessed. And why her mother doesn’t have a backbone.
He’d hugged his sisters’ tears away a hundred times over the years, had listened to Summer pour out her feelings about a boy she liked in second grade who liked to pull her pigtails. But he’d never been tempted to comfort a woman who wasn’t part of his family.
Zach knew it was dangerous to feel this way about Heather. She was breaking all the rules, ones that had never been in danger of cracking apart before.
But how could he possibly leave her like this, with shadows in her eyes?
The thing was, he knew Heather didn’t want his shoulder to cry on, that it would only wound her pride. Fortunately, he’d sat through one of Summer’s “shows” only a few weeks earlier, and all the bad seven-year-old jokes were still firmly lodged in his brain.
Although he’d never felt less like making a joke, he also knew he’d never needed to make one more. “What do you call frozen dog poo?”
Heather’s eyebrow rose as she looked up from her mutilated chicken chunk. “What did you just say?”
“A poopsicle.”
Her eyes widened as she realized he was telling her a joke.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just make that horrible joke.”
“What happened when the dog went to the flea circus?”
“Please, don’t make me guess.”
“He stole the show!”
She groaned and put her hands over her ears. “Someone, anyone, please make it stop.”
“What do you say to a dog before he eats?”
Relief swept through him when she played along by scrunching her eyes shut and whispering, “Bone appetit.”
For the rest of their dinner they each worked to see who could tell the worst joke while they polished off every last bit of the Indian dishes. Zach was pretty sure he won by a landslide, but even if he hadn’t, he’d memorize the contents of every bad joke book in the world if it meant putting a smile on Heather’s face.
He hadn’t just broken the rules tonight, he’d smashed them to smithereens. But for a couple of hours, he decided he didn’t care.
Besides, there was a big difference between laughing with Heather and falling in love with her. He’d wanted to sleep with her from the start. It was no hardship to add laughter—and comfort—to the mix.
Love still didn’t have to play into the equation.
Hell, after what he’d just found out about her father, it was no wonder she wasn’t looking for forever. Yet again, the two of them were well matched.
When the dishes were cleared away and the waiter mentioned dessert, she put her hands over her stomach and said, “I wish I could.” She reached for her wallet, but Zach had already handed the waiter plenty of cash.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, a soft smile on her beautiful face. “I had fun.” She looked faintly surprised as she added, “A lot of fun.”
So had he. More fun than he could ever remember having with a woman.
Whether she’d liked it or not, they’d just had their first date.
And it had been a good one.
As if she’d just realized that, she tensed. “I’ve got to get a really early start tomorrow. David will take good care of you and Cuddles on Thursday and Friday. I’ll check my schedule to see if Monday evening will work for me to check on your progress.”
Even though they’d just spent the past few hours together, Zach wasn’t ready for her to go yet. Plus, with the way the spicy food had made her lips a little redder, a little plumper than they usually were, all he could think about was kissing her. He stood and reached for her hand to help her up from her seat. She looked at it for a moment before putting her hand in his.
Before he could make his move, Heather made hers, her mouth soft on his cheek, she whispered, “Good night, Zach,” a warm breath against his ear before she patted Cuddles on the head and walked away with Atlas following beside her.
With any other woman he would have assumed she was teasing him, taunting him by coming close, but not nearly close enough, purposefully testing his patience as some sort of sensual dance.
But from Heather, that kiss on the cheek had been something completely different. Not a tease, but the beginning of trust that he could pretty easily guess she rarely, if ever, gave a man.
By the time he’d picked up Cuddles and headed up the street to his car in Heather’s parking lot, she was long gone. Which was just as well, because he had an important phone call he needed to make. One he didn’t want her to hear.
Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he dialed his brother Ryan, who would be pitching for the Hawks on Saturday during Bark in the Park.
“Hey, Ry, I need you to do something for me.”
Unlike Heather’s father, Zach had never cheated on a woman. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t willing to play a few games if necessary. Because he sure as hell wasn’t willing to wait until the following Monday for the chance get on Heather’s calendar again...or to have their first real kiss.
Chapter Eleven
Friday evening, Heather walked up to the will-call window at the baseball stadium with Atlas on his leash. He was sticking extra close to her side because of the crowds of men.