The Acceptance
Page 24

As she pulled back he could still sense the tension in her. Her mother must have upset her quite a bit, not to mention he was sure she was beginning to miss her brother. That would only prove to grow deeper for a while, he assumed. He’d never lost anyone he was close to. His grandfather, whom he was named after, had passed years before he’d been born. But he remembered his mother talking about the depression his father had gone into.
He could offer her company and compassion. Surely that would be enough for now.
Courtney had longed for this moment since she’d awakened next to him on the couch. Her mother’s visit had put her in a less than sunny mood. She couldn’t blame her for being the way she was, Courtney knew that. But she figured they’d butt heads a few more times before they’d each healed from Fitz’s death.
Tyler was here now. She embraced the thought. He’d come to pick her up for dinner.
She took his arm and he led her to the curb where his car was parked.
“Where are you taking me?” She asked as she climbed into the car.
“Home.”
Courtney hesitated for a moment. “Home?”
“I’m cooking for you.”
A hundred different feelings burst inside of her like a bomb being detonated full of emotions.
“You’re cooking me dinner?”
“I’ve been on the move for nearly three years. I haven’t called anywhere home in that long either. I just feel like being home. Cooking a decent meal—I hope. And being with a woman that fascinates me.”
She could feel those doubtful emotions begin to fizzle out and warmth began to surge through her. “I fascinate you?”
“In a million ways. Maybe I can share that with you tonight. I have a lot to talk about. I’ve had a wonderful day.”
Courtney locked her seatbelt in place and Tyler closed the door. She wondered what had gone on in his day that could have made him so chipper. Hopefully she wouldn’t dull his mood.
He had the radio on and it kicked into song when he started the car. Luke Bryan sang about playing a song again and again because a girl liked it. She was sure that if there was a song on the radio that would make her happy to hear over and over, Tyler would find it and play it until she’d had her fill.
The thought made her smile. What was it about this man who had been so lost that made her think he’d do something like that—for her?
As he drove he reached for her hand and held it. She enjoyed this. Never in a million years would she have thought that a man would find her so interesting. And for some reason, she never thought he’d be sighted. For what ever reason, she always figured the man she would get involved with, the one she thought more clearly, would be blind too. After all, the only men she’d been with had been blind. There had been no driving around and holding hands. No searching through rooms for treasures. Oh, there had been the fumbling of clothes, buttons, and tripping over shoes—the memory had her stifling a laugh. But this was different.
She thought back to the boulder in the creek at his grandmother’s. When she’d told him to close his eyes so he could see. It had awakened something in him. A sight.
She reminded herself that he was already healing when he got on that plane bound for Nashville. But she’d like to think in their few days together she had helped him move closer to accepting who he was and how important his family was.
“So what made your day so good? Did you talk to your father about a job?”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I did.”
“When do you start?”
“Oh, I start tomorrow, but I’m not building anything.”
Courtney turned her face toward him. “So you’re in a different department?”
“I didn’t take his job. I went looking for a different opportunity.”
“Such as?”
“My first project, I guess, is as an event planner.” He chuckled.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. I went to my aunt and asked for a job.”
“Your aunt. The one with the charity?”
“Yes. I have a need to do things for people who need it. I want to do something that will really matter in the long run.”
“When did you decide on this?”
“When I was sitting in my father’s office realizing that wasn’t what I wanted.”
She couldn’t help but wonder if that was what fascinated him with her—was she someone he saw as a person who needed help?
There was nothing she thought was probably further from the truth, but the thought stuck for a moment.
“What kind of event planning will you be doing?”
“I’m going to work with my cousin on putting together her fundraising gala. This one event nearly covers all her expenses.”
Courtney felt him shift. “In fact, she said she had a call today from a woman whom she’d helped out. The daughter had been assaulted by the woman’s boyfriend. But they had gotten away. She now had a good job and the girl was in school and doing well. I think this was exactly what she’d hoped for when she began her work.”
“How did she get into this?”
“One day there was a woman who kept coming to the clinic. She had a baby with her, I think. But she was always beat up. My aunt, who had managed a job at the clinic, had given the woman the diamond earrings her father had bought her. It was enough for the woman to pawn to buy food, diapers, and get away from the man. The woman did just that and in time she had a job, a new home, and a future. She worked with my aunt and the charity for years.”
“She doesn’t work for her anymore?”
“No. If I remember correctly she’s some city council woman or something. What my aunt did for her changed her life and my aunt’s. And when my aunt saw what one gesture like that could do she knew she could help many more women and families.”
Courtney couldn’t wait to meet this aunt. She sounded amazing.
“So does she have some big office? What is the overhead like on something like that?”
He laughed again. “No. She certainly doesn’t have a big office. In fact, she still works out of the clinic where she worked all those years ago. Her office hardly has room for her to turn around in. She certainly could have had a nice office. In fact, once she and her father made amends enough, and he reinstated her trust fund, she could have had Benson, Benson, and Hart build her a nice high rise.”