"Do you get scared?"
"Every day. " She laid a hand on Hayley's belly. "It comes with the territory. "
"It helps, having you to talk to. I mean, you were married when you went through this, but you - well, both you and Roz had^o deal with being a single parent. It helps that you know stuff. Helps having other women around who know stuff I need to know. "
With the job complete, Hayley walked over to turn off the water. "So," she asked, "are you going to Graceland?"
"I don't know. I might. "
* * *
With his crew split between the white pines and the landscape prep on the Guppy job, Logan set to work on the walkway for his old teacher. It wouldn't take him long, and he could hit both the other work sites that afternoon. He liked juggling jobs. He always had.
Going directly start to finish on one too quickly cut out the room for brainstorms or sudden inspiration. There was little he liked better than that pop, when he just saw something in his head that he knew he could make with his hands.
He could take what was and make it better, maybe blend some of what was with the new and create a different whole.
He'd grown up respecting the land, and the whims of Nature, but more from a farmer's point of view. When you grew up on a small farm, worked it, fought with it, he thought, you understood what the land meant. Or could mean.
His father had loved the land, too, but in a different way, Logan supposed. It had provided for his family, cost them, and in the end had gifted them with a nice bonanza when his father had opted to sell out.
He couldn't say he missed the farm. He'd wanted more than row crops and worries about market prices. But he'd wanted, needed, to work the land.
Maybe he'd lost some of the magic of it when he'd moved north. Too many buildings, too much concrete, too many limitations for him. He hadn't been able to acclimate to the climate or culture any more than Rae had been able to acclimate here.
It hadn't worked. No matter how much both of them had tried to nurture things along, the marriage had just withered on them.
So he'd come home, and ultimately, with Roz's offer, he'd found his place - personally, professionally, creatively. And was content.
He ran his lines, then picked up his shovel.
And jabbed the blade into the earth again.
What had he been thinking? He'd asked the woman out. He could call it whatever he liked, but when a guy asked a woman out, it was a frigging date.
He had no intention of dating toe-the-line Stella Rothchild. She wasn't his type.
Okay, sure she was. He set to work turning the soil between his lines to prep for leveling and laying the black plastic. He'd never met a woman, really, who wasn't his type.
He just liked the breed, that's all. Young ones and old ones, country girls and city-slicked. Whip smart or bulb dim, women just appealed to him on most every level.
He'd ended up married to one, hadn't he? And though that had been a mistake, you had to make them along the way.
Maybe he'd never been particularly drawn to the structured, my-way-or-the-highway type before. But there was always a first time. And he liked first times. It was the second times and the third times that could wear on a man.
But he wasn't attracted to Stella.
Okay, shit. Yes, he was. Mildly. She was a good-looking woman, nicely shaped, too. And there was the hair. He was really gone on the hair. Wouldn't mind getting his hands on that hair, just to see if it felt as sexy as it looked.
But it didn't mean he wanted to date her. It was hard enough to deal with her professionally. The woman had a rule or a form or a damn system for everything.
Probably had them in bed, too. Probably had a typed list of bullet points, dos and don'ts, all with a mission statement overview.
What the woman needed was some spontaneity, a little shake of the order of things. Not that he was interested in being the one to provide it.
It was just that she'd looked so pretty that morning, and her hair had smelled good. Plus she'd had that sexy little smile going for her. Before he knew it, he'd been talking about taking her to Graceland.
Nothing to worry about, he assured himself. She wouldn't go. It wasn't the sort of thing a woman like her did, just for the hell of it. As far as he could tell, she didn't do anything for the hell of it.