He laughed. “I have no skills—what about you?”
“Me, either. But Mildred is desperate for help so she called and asked me to assist. I’m known for my slap-and-dash decorating.”
“What is slap-and-dash?”
“Slap on the frosting, like so.” She picked up a cookie spread a thick bit of frosting all over it and then reached for a jar of sprinkles. “Then dash them with these babies.”
She shook the sprinkles over the cookie and then turned and placed it on a tray behind them. “Think you can do that?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
She laughed and they worked on the cookies, with Candace talking and telling him stories about the other volunteers in the room. After a while, she stopped talking and looked over at him.
“Most of us are here for Mildred, but I can tell you’re here for Paisley.”
“I am. She asked and I couldn’t say no.”
“She has that effect on people.” Candace smiled warmly. “Such a good-hearted girl. I wonder sometimes if she goes overboard to make up for her father.”
“I don’t know who her father is,” Sean admitted. She’d only vaguely talked of her siblings and her mom when they’d been together, and since he was hiding some of himself, he hadn’t felt like he’d had the right to ask.
“Jeffrey Campbell. He bilked tons of people in the area out of their savings, including Mildred.”
Sean’s eyes widened, then he looked over at Paisley, thinking that he might not know her at all. There was apparently a lot more to this woman than he’d let himself realize.
Inviting Sean to come to Mrs. B’s was a gamble. Paisley always tried to keep this part of her life private, but she was thinking of her baby—Sean’s baby—and how her life had been two very different worlds. A part of her really wanted to see something in Sean that would convince her he was the man she’d thought she knew. So she’d brought him here.
When he’d gone over to work with Candace, Paisley hadn’t known what to expect, but he was working steadily and talking to the old woman like they were lifelong friends. She was torn. She felt like maybe she’d seen in him all the things she wanted to find in a man, but had also been waiting for him to fail, waiting for him to disappoint her. And then, when he had...she’d been hurt, but deep down, not surprised.
“So I thought you were dating a man named Jack,” Mrs. B said as they worked on the intricate decorating of the cookies.
“Um...yeah. So, um, SeanisJack.”
Mrs. B cleared her throat. “Do I even want to know more?”
“Probably, you’re nosy just like me.”
Mrs. B laughed and nodded. “I am. Spill.”
“He’s an actor,” she said quietly. He wasn’t hiding his identity anymore, but she didn’t feel comfortable with that side of him. She wondered if she ever would. Based on her experiences with others, she wasn’t sure how much she’d enjoy his fame.
“Is he famous?” Mrs. B asked her.
“Yes, he is.”
Mrs. B put down the piping bag of icing and took off her glasses to glance over at Candace and Sean. “I don’t recognize him.”
“I didn’t, either. But he’s been the Sexiest Man of the Year twice,” she said, laughing for the first time at that fact, hoping that the other woman didn’t hear the underlying sadness in it.
Mrs. B put her arm around Paisley. “Don’t beat yourself up. We all see what we want to.”
“Wise words,” she murmured, but given that she was pregnant with a baby by a man she really didn’t know was a bit hard to accept. “Thanks.”
“You told me the same thing when everything happened with your father. Remember? You said I saw the good in everyone and therefore expected them to live up to that?”
She’d forgotten about that. “I still believe that. But I should have known better. I mean, given my past, seeing a liar—”
“Maybe he wasn’t lying where it counted. You responded to something in him,” Mrs. B pointed out.