Page 102 of Guarding Over You
She wanted to know so much more about him now that her heart was involved.
Glancing down at her daughter and the excitement to see her boyfriend again told her that holding out for the right things were important.
She wasn’t ready yet to let Gracie know the status change with Blaze, but soon.
She just hoped today didn’t give it away. She hadn’t even told Gracie of all the people who would be there. For now, it wasbest to let her have fun and meet everyone slowly before they all gathered at the table.
“There is Blaze!”
Gracie had her face to the glass doors, her hands around her eyes, peering through as if it would magically make him appear.
Seemed it worked. Maybe she should do something like that more often.
Blaze’s smile filled his face. He squatted and pointed at Gracie, then slapped his hands to his chest as if in surprise that she’d scared him.
Her daughter was giggling up a storm, then reached for the door to open it.
“Oh no,” she said. “You know the rules. You don’t open the door.”
“But it’s Blaze,” Gracie argued.
Yeah, it was. But that wasn’t the point.
“I still have to get it.”
She flipped the latch, pulled the door open and resisted the urge to yank Blaze into her arms for a kiss.
The look in his eyes said he was thinking the same.
Not yet. They’d get there.
“Hey, Gracie. Have you been waiting for me?”
“I want to pick fruit.”
“I heard,” he said. “Are you going to eat any of it?”
“Mom is going to put it in pancakes and cookies.”
“Muffins,” she said. “Not sure about cookies yet.”
“Sounds yummy. Are you going to share them?”
“I can,” she said.
“We can go if you’re ready. Looks like someone is.”
Gracie was putting her sneakers on, then stood by the door waiting for them to leave out the back and walk around to Blaze’s.
“I’ll go to the garage and come around back,” she said. “So I can lock this door.”
Blaze and Gracie slipped out the back. Arden snapped the latch down, then went through the garage, opened the door, shut and set the code from the pad on the outside.
Then she realized she had to go to Blaze’s out front since she couldn’t get around back unless she went to the neighbor’s two down on the other end. Silly in her mind when there was no hiding where she was going.
The minute she was climbing the front stairs, the door opened. “Mom, you beat us!”
She laughed. “Looks like I did.”
