“I can.”
He rolled onto his knees and kept trying to tie my dress. “Would you help me?”
A duck flew up onto the railing. Startled, Jared threw up an arm. The duck bobbed his green head in greeting.
Finally, Jared shook his head and sat back on his feet. “Only in the Cove, man.”
And then I was off in giggle-land again.
We’d led the ducks back to the restaurant once more.
Twenty-One
A week out from the boat incident, and I still was getting knowing looks from people in town. Add in the lookout point, the night of the tree lighting, the betting pool, ducks, and…well, if we wanted to keep our relationship a secret—which I did not—we wouldn’t have been able to.
We were officially the town’s favorite topic of discussion.
I’d convinced Bee to donate most of the money from the betting pool to the food pantry. The rest went to a staggering amount of Christmas decorations. I hadn’t thought there was room in my house for any more.
I’d been very wrong.
I sat back in my chair as I waited for my report to print.
There was a knock on my open door. I spun around. The instinctive kick of fear would go away eventually, I was pretty sure. Gina’s mother was a force, both as an employee and a mama bear. “Hey, Bonnie. What can I do for you?”
“I’m just checking to make sure everything is ready for my time off.”
I frowned, and then my memory kicked in. I’d been so scattered with my actual office duties that I’d forgotten. “Oh, right, Erica is damn close, huh?”
She nodded and closed the door before sitting in the chair in front of my desk. “My first—well, Dios, I guess my second grandchild.” She narrowed her eyes at me.
My chest tightened. Guess I wasn’t the only one who thought Bee was more the mother of my child than her biological one.
Bonnie laced her fingers over her knees and stared me down. “Speaking of.”
I swallowed. I was basically living in sin with her daughter. We hadn’t technically moved in together, but she’d made my place such a home at this point that I didn’t want to think about a moment without her.
I opened my mouth.
“Don’t lie to my face when I ask you this question, Jared Brooks.”
I mirrored her folded hands and forced my shoulders to relax. “Okay. You know me, Bonnie. I don’t lie.”
She let out a sharp laugh. “You’ve been lying to yourself for years.”
Okay, I couldn’t really disagree with her there. “I’ve always cared about, Bee—Gina. But now things are different.”
“Because she’s your in-house nanny and baby mama?”
My jaw locked. “Of course not. I called on her for help because she’s my best friend and I didn’t know who else to call.”
“And yet you made her lie to her family for a week.”
&n
bsp; I clutched the arms of my chair. Stupidly, I’d thought we were past all of this.
Go fish, Brooks.