“Then what’s this?” I asked, grabbing the notebook she had clutched in one hand.
“Knox! Stop!”
“Emergency Back-to-School To Do,” I read. “Pick up laptop. Try to schedule meeting with teacher. Back to school clothes and supplies. Money.” I let out a low whistle. “A lot of question marks after that one.”
She lunged for the notebook, but I held it out of her reach and flipped back a page. I found another to do list and another one. “Sure do like lists,” I observed.
Her handwriting started out nice and neat, but the farther down the list it got, I could practically feel the panic in her penmanship. The woman had a lot on her plate. And not much to do it with if the glimpse of her bank balances scrawled at the bottom of a shopping list were any indicator.
This time I allowed her to snatch the notebook back. She threw it on the desk behind her and picked up her wine glass.
“Stay out of my business, Knox,” she said. Her cheeks were pink, and there wasn’t a hint of frost in those gorgeous hazel eyes now. Every time she took a deep breath, her breasts grazed my chest and drove me just a little more insane.
“You don’t have to do this alone, you know,” I said.
She clapped her non-wine-holding hand to her forehead in mock excitement. “Of course! I can just ask for handouts from strangers. Why didn’t I think of that? That wouldn’t make me look like I’m incapable of taking care of a child in the eyes of the law. Problem solved.”
“There’s nothin’ wrong with accepting a little help now and then.”
“I don’t need help. I need time,” she insisted, her shoulders tensing, hand fisting at her side. “Sloane mentioned she might have a part-time position opening up at the library after school starts. I can save up and get a car. I can make this work. I just need time.”
“You want extra shifts at Honky Tonk, say the word.” I couldn’t seem to stop wanting this woman’s orbit to overlap with my own. It was a stupid, dangerous game I was playing.
“This from the man who called me an ‘uppity, needy pain in the ass’ and tried to fire me on the spot. Forgive me if I don’t ever ask you for anything.”
“Oh, come on, Naomi. I was pissed off.”
She looked at me like she wanted to light me on fire. “And?” she said pointedly.
“And what? I said some shit because I was pissed off. You weren’t supposed to hear it. Not my fault you were eavesdroppin’ on a private conversation.”
“You yelled two seconds after I walked out the door! You can’t just do that! Words have power. They make people feel things.”
“So stop feelin’ things, and let’s move on,” I suggested.
“That might be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“Doubt that. You grew up with Tina.”
The ice in her had thawed and turned to molten lava. “I did grow up with Tina. I was nine when I overheard her telling my best friend they should play without me because I was too snobby to have any fun. I was fourteen when she kissed the boy she knew I liked and told me I was too needy for him or anyone to ever want me.”
Fucking A. This is why I hated talking to people. Sooner or later, you always stuck your finger in a wound.
I ran my hand through my hair.
“Then along comes Knox Morgan. Who doesn’t want me around because, despite my defective personality of being uppity and needy, you still managed to be attracted to my body.”
“Look, Daisy. It’s nothing personal.”
“Except it is deeply personal.”
“Put a lot of thought into being pissed off about this, haven’t you?” Maybe I wasn’t the only one losing sleep.
“Go screw yourself, Knox!”
The brisk knock at the front door made Naomi jump. Wine sloshed over the rim of her glass.
“Am I interrupting?” The woman on the other side of the screen door was a few inches shy of Naomi and wore a rumpled gray suit. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun.