Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
When we break apart, I exchange an incredulous look with my bestie, Harper. One that screams, “Oh my fucking God.” When I arrived in Orchard Blossom almost two months ago, Harper came over, and I proceeded to tell my lifelong best friend everything that had happened to me in Hawaii over a bottle of wine. I didn’t divulge Roman’s “new team” secret to Harper or anyone else, as promised—but I certainly did tell Harper the story of the lovely, elegant grandmother who’d comforted me at the airport and instructed me to indulge my every whim during my vacation.
At the time of that conversation with Harper, we both giggled and snickered to think that nice Airport Lady had given me a much-needed push to defy my inhibitions and have my first fling with a stranger. And now it turns out the Airport Lady was unknowingly giving me to permission to bang her gorgeous son? What are the odds?
“Sorry to interrupt the lovefest,” Roman says with a chuckle. “But how did you two meet, exactly?”
My body seizes with preemptive embarrassment, but Ava’s bubbly, happy energy doesn’t shift in the least. With a smile, she links her arm in mine and breezily replies, “Iris dropped her sunglasses while waiting in line for a rental car, so I picked them up and brought them to her, and we wound up having a lovely, memorable conversation.” She looks at me sympathetically, her lips pursed. “The poor baby had been through a rough time the day before, so we sat down together and she told me about it, in the most precious, darling way imaginable.” She pats my arm. “I told Edward about our conversation when I got to the gate. I told him, ‘I just met the loveliest girl, Edward. I swear, I’ll never forget her, as long as I live.’”
“She did,” Edward confirms.
Gratitude floods me. Butterflies. Relief. There were so many other ways Roman’s mother might have described our tear-filled encounter—descriptions that would have cast me in a horribly embarrassing light. But she chose to treat me with kindness, once again. Clearly, the moment we shared in Hawaii wasn’t a fluke—kindness is Ava Maguire’s default setting. No wonder she reminded me of my own mother back at that airport—my mom was the exact same way. Kind and generous to her very core.
“That’s so you, Mom,” Roman says with a smirk. “Yet another Pop-Up Pal.” To me, Roman adds, “That’s what Mom calls the brief connections she always makes with people, everywhere she goes.”
“I love that.” I smile at Ava. “Being your Pop-Up Pal was a lucky thing for me. I needed your kind words and comfort, more than you possibly could have known.” Even if it causes me embarrassment, it’s only right to give the woman her due.
I look at Roman, and it suddenly occurs to me: Like mother, like son. Indeed, I think it’s fair to say Roman did for me exactly what his mother had done at the airport, only on a much grander scale. In the beginning, I figured Roman did that for sex—but after a while, that answer wasn’t good enough. Well, now I know: he was doing what he’d witnessed his own mother doing his entire life. Being kind. Going out on a limb to help someone in need. Not to mention, like Harper figured out at the bar the other day, I’m sure Roman recognized some of his own struggles in me.
“What a crazy coincidence,” Roman’s father says. “To think you two met at a tiny airport on an island in the Pacific, and now you’re meeting again in a tiny town three thousand miles away.”
“There are no coincidences,” Roman’s mom says ominously, her index finger raised. “Only signs.”
“Yep,” Roman agrees, with a visible squeeze of his son’s little hand.
Throughout this conversation, little Maverick has been quietly holding his father’s hand and shyly pressing his cheek against Roman’s thick thigh. But now that my eyes have locked with his, he slides slightly behind his daddy’s leg.
“Hey, Maverick,” I say softly. “Your daddy told me you might like to ride a horse today. Is that true?”
Maverick gasps and looks up at his father, his little eyebrows raised to his scalp.
“You have to reply to Iris if you want to go, buddy,” Roman coos. “She’s the person who can make it happen for you, not me.”
Maverick blushes a deep shade of crimson and his tiny body heaves with his intake of air.
“You don’t have to feel shy with Iris,” Roman persists, his large palm resting on Maverick’s dark mop of hair. “She’s the nicest person I’ve ever met. She’s Daddy’s really, really good friend, and I know you’ll like her, too, if you give her a chance to be your friend.”
My heart flutters at Roman’s amazing words. Also, Roman’s tone and body language with his son are so damned gentle and sweet, my ovaries suddenly feel like tiny pitching machines at a batting cage. Pop, pop, pop.