Page 31 of The Disputed Legacy

No one had ever looked at me like this. Like he was two seconds from obliterating any distance between us just to be close again.

I was trapped, staring right back at him as I had to cave and give in to admitting how wrong I was.

He hadn’t moved on. He hadn’t lost interest.

He was here.

“Saul!”

Oscar’s happy exclamation distracted me, and I flinched a bit at my son’s voice. He’d turned and spotted Saul as well. Even though the windows separated us, Saul had to have noticed the change in my demeanor. He turned his head just enough to see Oscar in the booth, and a slow and easy smile lifted his lips. That hungry stare was gone, replaced with something softer and kinder for my son.

But I was rooted in place anyway.

Saul had to have missed me to come back.

He had to have kept me in his thoughts to return with that kind of a look for me.

As my heart thudded fast and my head felt light with the thrill of Saul being here again, I watched him enter the diner and advance toward Oscar, greeting him like an old friend might.

He missed me.

He… wants me.

And I had told him that we could be friends.

As I embraced the new depth of how much my body reacted to him, how wildly my heart raced for him, I had to wonder ifIcould be strong enough to stick with the basic concept of our being “only friends”.

Oscar and Saul sat together, chatting easily, but as I carried my stack of plates back toward Margo’s station, I looked over. I had to. This bone-deep awareness of this man forced me to obey the urge to see him.

He looked up from my son, still smiling, but as our gazes clashed, he smiled wider. A secret smile. A knowing one. Like hewas well aware of how I was starting to feel for him and want him despite my better judgment.

Dammit.

How is this happening?

Why?

You know better, Willow.

No men.

No dating.

Because if he ends up being untrustworthy…

I exhaled a pent-up breath of frustration as I set the plates down on the low counter for Margo.

She didn’t say a word. She only looked at me and chuckled.

“What?” I asked.

“Here I was thinking all along that he’s got puppy eyes for you.” She harrumphed as she took the top dish off the stack. “And now I see how you’re trying not to drool for him!”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed that someone could read me that well. I’d spent too much time and used too much effort to resist letting a man matter that it felt like an epic failure to even think about Saul like this. With filthy, wanton fantasies. With silly, insecure wishes for him to be my hero. With stubborn, potent urges I couldn’t ignore.

For the rest of the night, I fought the urge to go sit with Oscar and catch up with Saul. If he was still the same mysterious stranger as before this week of not showing up, he wouldn’t be telling my son why he hadn’t come by. I wondered if he’d ever tellmeanything, but I bet that the issue preventing him from talking more with me was the way I didn’t offer details about myself. It was probably a give-and-take scenario that he was hoping for, but I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t there yet.

So, I stayed back. With enough customers to keep me busy and on my feet, I didn’t have the lull to go over and say hi. Itwas nice to see him talking with Oscar, though. It made me smile when I saw them hunched over more homework pages.