Closing Books (20 page)

“I like pizzas. You sure you know how to make them?”

“I like your confidence. Make sure you don’t turn nasty when you lose.”

They kicked off their competition with each having three chances to bring down the tower of cans. Evelyn managed to hit two off while Dan got all three in one strike. They continued going from store to store, playing every game, then stuffing whatever tickets they received into their back pockets.

After the first few rounds, Evelyn was losing terribly. So, whenever it was Dan’s turn, she’d try her best to distract him.

At first, she was just talking nonsense next to his ears, trying to make him laugh. When that didn’t work, she resorted to pushing his hand away from whatever they were aiming at.

Dan laughed at her antics. Instead of keeping her at arm’s length so that she couldn’t disturb him, he wrapped his arm over her and pulled her in front of him. Most of the time, Evelyn would stop her antics and watch him play while she leaned against his chest. But whenever he was doing too well, Evelyn would start her distractions again.

Her strategy worked, and Dan was beginning to lose.
 

Taking a break from the games, Dan bought them some popcorn and cotton candy, and they strolled around the fair. When they neared the merry-go-round, Dan pulled her toward it.
 

Once Evelyn noticed where they were heading, she started pulling back, refusing to move any farther. “Come on, Dan, that’s too childish for us. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’ll be with you.”

“Doesn’t make a difference.”

Her refusal didn’t have much effect on Dan’s decision. His hand tightened around hers and he continued striding toward the horses dancing in circles.
 

The only other adults on the rides where parents accompanying their children. They got quite a few stares as they stepped up among the horses and the children.
 

“Dan, seriously.”

“Humor me,” Dan said, and pulled out his phone. He stood next to her and leaned in. “Smile!”

She did as she was told. A blinding flash went off and she had to close her eyes for a few moments to get her vision back. She glanced around and turned back to Dan with a small frown. “Everyone is staring.”

“They’re just checking out what a great couple we make.” He grinned and, without any warning, grabbed Evelyn around her waist, lifting her up onto one of the horses.
 

Evelyn gasped and grabbed Dan’s hand, worried that she’d fall. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“We’ve been walking. Rest for a while.”

She turned to look around, but Dan gently held her chin and turned her face toward him.
 

“Don’t worry about everyone else. No one knows who you are. Just have fun, all right?”

She pursed her lips and cast another glance around, then nodded. Dan did bring her here to have fun.

She stretched out her hand, palm up, and gestured for Dan’s phone. She took plenty of pictures, and when the ride finally ended, they got off the ride while scanning through the pictures.

“Rested?”

“How many more tickets do we need?”

They each made a quick count of the tickets they had. They needed another twenty tickets, with Evelyn losing to Dan by three tickets.

“Let’s go, and stop cheating,” he said.

She laughed and hooked her arm around Dan’s, leaning against his arm. “The point is to have fun, right? I have fun when I do that.”

For the rest of the games, instead of competing with each other, Dan always kept Evelyn close to him, helping or watching her play the games. Eventually, they got the tickets they wanted and headed to redeem the soft toy.

By the time Dan and Evelyn headed over to the Ferris wheel, the main crowd of families had dwindled down as the younger ones were sent home to bed.
 

Dan held Evelyn’s hand and smiled at her.

Throughout the day, he had to fight the temptation to lean in and kiss her. Whenever she was close, he could smell the sweet and refreshing scent of green apple from her hair. It took all of his discipline to stop himself from turning her around and kissing her.
 

He had utterly forgotten about the competition they were having.
 

He hated it when each game ended; that meant he had to let go of her, and he didn’t want to.

Now that he finally had her in his arms, he found it difficult to let go.

Stepping by one of the carriages, he stretched out his hand and helped her up before getting into it. “Ever been on one of these?”

Evelyn shook her head while her eyes scanned the surroundings. She watched every movement of the Ferris wheel, looking around as it slowly inched up. “You? How many women have you brought up here?”

Dan grinned at her question. “Two. Plenty of times with the first. First time with the second,” he said, gazing right at Evelyn.

He waited for Evelyn to turn toward him, but she didn’t, appearing to be thinking of a reaction.

“Joanne was a sucker for these things. Usually my parents would accompany her, but those times when I had to take her, I’d be forced to take this stupid ride with her.” His grin broadened as he saw the corner of her lips turning up.
 

“Why? You could have just said no; you’re the older brother.”

“She knew my parents would kill me if she went home being anything less than completely entertained.”

“If it’s so boring for you, then why did you bring me to this now?”

“It isn’t boring now. I’ve been waiting all day for this,” he said as the Ferris wheel came to a halt while they were right at the top.

He placed his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer as he leaned in, whispering, “I’ve been waiting all day to kiss you.” Then he closed the distance and kissed her gently. Slipping his hand into her hair, he moved her closer against his chest and deepened his kiss.
 

Her hands grazed across his chest, moving toward his neck. She looped them around his neck, keeping him in place.
 

“Mmm…” she moaned as he broke the kiss.
 

“Did you have fun today?” he asked, his nose still touching hers. He wanted to let her enjoy the lights from above, but it was difficult to pry himself away from her.

“Yeah,” she answered, her voice as deep as his.

He sighed softly. “The view is extremely beautiful up here. You can see the city lights and—”

“Just one more minute,” she said, her hands tugging against his neck.
 

Dan couldn’t say no to that. He grinned and found her lips, returning to their kiss.
 

Evelyn grinned as she looked at the text on her phone. She wished last night could go on forever, wished she could freeze the moment on the Ferris wheel.

“You look happy.”

“I am.”

“So? Tell me.”

Evelyn laughed and told Kate everything they did, pointing to the soft toy sitting on the edge of her table. “No one had ever done anything like that for me. Just because of what I said…he…”
 

What Dan did for her wasn’t just sweet. He went over and beyond to help her close the ugly chapter behind her.

After all the insanity she’d put him through, after all that he’d learned about her, he was still around and still doing so much for her.

“I know,” Kate said.

Evelyn smiled. Just as she finished her story, the new administrative temp walked into Evelyn’s office with a bouquet of pink roses. “Miss Jordan, this just came for you.”

Evelyn took the flowers from her with a grin plastered on her face.

Taking in a deep breath, she breathed in the roses, pushed the piles of files aside, and placed the bouquet on the newly cleared space.

“If you just clean up your office a little, there’ll be plenty of room for Dan’s flowers and presents.”

“Actually, I wanted to ask you to help clean things up a little. Not today, though, got some work to do. I’m a little behind time, haven’t found some of the furniture you wanted.”

Kate blinked, her brows drawing closer. “Did I hear you correctly?”

Evelyn rolled her eyes and turned to her laptop.

“I never thought there’d come a day you’d agree that you’re messy.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going down to the gym to check on things, and I’ll help you sound out what Dan says.”

Evelyn laughed at the notion of having to sound out what some guy thought of her. She never cared much about her dates. After all, she never went out with them more than once. “Kate, please don’t do anything to embarrass me.”

“I’m happy for you, I really am. And when have I ever embarrassed you?”

“Who’s taking you there?”

Kate rolled her eyes and Evelyn chuckled at her frustrations.
 

Sighing out loud, she cocked her head toward the new temp staff. “Tiffany is dropping me off.”

Evelyn nodded as Kate closed the door behind her.
 

She leaned against her chair and scanned through the photos that Dan had sent her on the email. Picking a few, she sent them to Kate with a short message, asking her to print the photos.
 

Tyler knew Kate loved taking photos, and he had gotten her a photo printer so that she didn’t have to travel to get her photos printed.

And as her best friend, she was entitled to make use of her friend and her photo printer.

Logging out of her email, she switched off the laptop and picked up her bag.

Though she was tempted to spend the rest of the day reminiscing, there was work to be done.

Dan stood behind his truck, his laptop opened, checking his email to make sure that the rest of his projects were on schedule. He skimmed through his email, smiling the moment he saw one from Evelyn.
 

He clicked on it and laughed when he saw a list of dishes she liked; below it, a short message telling him to pick from the list for the dinner he was to prepare.

“You look happy, too.”

Dan turned around, surprised to see Kate. “Kate, I didn’t know you were coming down.”

“Hoping it’d be Evelyn?”

He smiled sheepishly. “No, I was surprised, that’s all. She looks happy?”

“I’ll tell you more if you take me out for lunch.”

“Deal. Let me know when you’re done.”

Kate nodded and strode into the gym while Dan remained behind his truck and perused the emails.
 

Less than fifteen minutes later, Kate was out. “You’re the only contractor I’ve worked with who hasn’t given me any problem.”

Dan laughed, understanding what Kate was referring to.
 

Though he tried as much as possible to follow the drawings provided by the interior designers, often, some things that were feasible on paper just weren’t possible in reality. Since he already knew Kate, he’d gone through the drawings and discussed with her some areas that had to be changed.
 

Once Dan had given her the explanation, she and Evelyn made the corrections and gave him the new drawings. That way, there wouldn’t be a need to halt work while the contractors and designers thrashed things out.

“Ready? Give me five minutes.”

Kate nodded, getting into Dan’s car while he changed out of his dust-coated T-shirt.
 

When Dan got back into the car, he wasn’t surprised to hear her talking to Tyler. The moment she hung up, she turned to him and asked how things went.
 

“I thought you were supposed to tell me what
she
thought?”

“I will. I’m just being your concerned friend.”

“You mean nosy friend.”

“You know, I heard you’re supposed to cook for her. And I’m betting that you’re going to ask Marianne for help.” Her lips curled and she continued. “And I can make it extremely difficult for you to do so.”

“Sometimes, Kate, you’re scary.”

They laughed it off. Dan told her what happened in less than five sentences. His mind was too busy thinking about the kiss he had with Evelyn to provide any further details.

He sighed, missing her warmth within his arms.

“You skipped lots of details, but you obviously enjoyed yourself.”

“So she shared the details with you?”

Kate gave him what-do-you-think stare.

“All right. Now can you tell me what she said?” He knew they had fun, but he had to hear it from someone close to Evelyn. He wanted to be more than sure.

“She had a great time, and she couldn’t stop smiling at whatever you texted this morning. Oh, and she made space for your flowers and the soft toy you won. The most significant thing she mentioned wasn’t about your date, but definitely about you.”

Dan cast a glance over at her, waiting for her to continue.

“She wants to clean up her house and her office. She asked me to help. So, I suppose she expects you to be around quite a lot.”

Dan grinned, relieved that Evelyn hadn’t freaked out or began pulling herself away from him. “Her house
is
sort of messy.” He laughed, remembering the conversation they had at the mansion.

“Sort of? Please. Afraid I’ll tell on you?”

“I’m just the polite sort of guy.”

“That you are. And it’s nice that you planned all this.”

“I should’ve done so earlier. Marianne was right all along, but don’t bother telling her, I’ll never admit it in front of her.”

At lunch, Kate told Dan in detail what Evelyn had said to her; details that didn’t seem of much importance to Dan, but appeared severely important to Evelyn and Kate.
 

He wasn’t entirely interested in the details, he was just glad that it was a good report.

Since he heard what happened to Evelyn, he wanted to make things better for her. He wanted her to have everything she didn’t have, everything she didn’t experience, and above all else, he wanted to protect her from everything before and everything to come.

He knew Evelyn didn’t want any sympathy, but his heart ached each time he thought about what happened to her.