Page 42 of Just Ten Seconds

God, she’s cute. And so inviting.

“Sorry. I’m just getting some mums, and then I have to meet Jackie inside. She’s inside probably chewing off the pie maker’s ear. Have you had the apple-blueberry pie? It’s my favorite. We sell it at the café too.”

Amanda makes a face of disgust. “Pie is gross. Especially cherry.”

“You like Grandma’s chocolate pudding pie,” Dean quips.

“That’s totally different,” she explains, and even I have to agree with her.

The way she speaks with this little-girl tone but in a matter-of-fact way is adorable. I can stare at her forever.

I let out a small laugh until I feel Dean’s stare. I can’t see his eyes because of those damn sunglasses, but I can feel him looking at me, assessing me.

With the clearing of my throat, I look back to Amanda and bid her farewell. “It was great seeing you.”

“You too, Mara!”

She runs up and gives me a hug. I have to hold the mums up in the air as her tiny arms wrap around my waist and pull me in tightly.

I haven’t been hugged like this by a child in … ever. It causes the breath I’m unleashing to come out shaky.

If I could cry, I would. But this is neither the time nor place.

She steps back, and I blink a few times to get myself in order.

I turn around and take several deep breaths, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. First, with the truck backfiring and then the hug … I’ve only been here thirty minutes, and I’ve already tapped my nerves out emotionally.

It was just a hug, Mara.

Get over it. Move on.

As I walk off, I see another mum that has a purplish color. Yes, mums. That’s what I was doing. I distract myself with the task and look at this one sitting on a nearby table. It would look lovely on the bottom of Rita’s steps. I’m inclined to get more than the two in my hands, but I don’t have enough limbs.

With my outstretched fingers, I try to lift the third mum into my hand, but I can’t get my fingers over the edge of the planter to grasp it.

“Let me get that for you.” Dean’s baritone sounds in my ear, as he leans over me and lifts the mum off the table.

“It’s okay. I was thinking about getting a third, but I can just make two trips.”

“No way,” he says and points to another mum of the same color. “How many do you want?”

It’s not that I don’t know how to accept help from a man; I was getting pretty good at being independent again. That, and I’ve been trying to distance myself from Dean. It doesn’t seem to be working.

“It’s okay. I can—”

“You want a fifth?” He grabs another mum like he has all day to help me buy mums.

I can see my reflection in his glasses. My body looks dwarfed in the lenses, which is how I feel around his empowering frame. He is so physically commanding that it’s hard not to feel small in comparison.

“That’s good,” I say and walk toward the folding table at the entrance of the outdoor market area where I pay for the plants.

Dean and Amanda follow me there and then to my car where he helps me place them in the back seat.

As he closes my back door, I tell him, “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Call me old-fashioned, but men carry things for women even though they’re perfectly capable of doing it themselves.”

“Oh,” is all I say in response because there’s really no arguing with that one.