Being with Ted was like being with someone Reece had known her whole life. He made her laugh, always complimented her, and they never ran out of things to talk about.
When they were out to dinner one night and he looked up at her from across the table and said, “I’d like for you to meet Hadley,” her heart nearly fell out onto the floor.
“Meet her? You mean, spend time with her?”
“I mean whatever it is you think I mean.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not the same as actually saying it.”
“Okay, then. I’m saying that yes, I’d like for you to join Hadley and myself for an afternoon out. Maybe we can go fishing. Hadley loves fishing, and you do, too.”
Her palms were suddenly sweating. This was fairly quickly. She and Ted had only gone out a handful of times. They always had fun and their conversations were full-on discussions about everything from which roast of coffee was the best—lighter or dark—to whether or not aliens really existed, to what was the most important part of life. On that, they both agreed—family.
So Reece knew Hadley meant everything to him, which meant that when Ted asked her to spend time with his daughter, this wasn’t a decision that he’d come to without carefully considering the consequences.
“I’m a single dad, Reece. You know that I think of Hadley before anyone else. She’s the most important person in my life, and you’re quickly becoming another important person in my life.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Suddenly the shrimp on her plate looked way more interesting than his eyes, because she knew that her face must have been on fire.
“You’re not looking at me.”
“I don’t even know what to think right now.”
“How about you think,” he started in that silky voice of his, “that maybe it might be a good idea for y’all to get to know one another.”
Her shoulders slumped. “You’re putting a lot of responsibility on me.”
“I’m putting a lot of responsibility on both of us,” he corrected gently. “I can’t bring a woman into my daughter’s life unless I’m sure that it’s the right thing to do.”
She sneaked a glance at him. He stared at her openly, his jaw relaxed, his eyes shining with honesty. “Are you sure it’s the right thing?”
“I wouldn’t be suggesting it if I wasn’t.”
And in her heart, if Reece waded through all the worry and knots of anxiety in the way and asked herself if this was the right thing, she knew it was. She knew that Ted was more than a man she would date for a few months and then tire of. She knew that their relationship was bigger, that it was deeper than just surface level.
All she had to do was accept it.
But she also didn’t want a ton of pressure on her first time getting to know Hadley. “How about y’all come to Thanksgiving dinner? You, Hadley and your mom? We’re cooking up a big feast, and I expect that half the town will be there. I’d like for y’all to come, too.”
Ted slowly nodded as if the idea was stewing in his head. “I’d like that, and I’m sure Hadley would enjoy it a lot more than it being just the three of us—and I know for a fact that my mama would rather someone else cook than her.”
She laughed. “I bet she would. It’s settled.”
“It is. We’ll come and see how things go. After that, we’ll take things from there.”
She grinned. “Good. I’ll tell Mama to expect—”
Reece was going to say that she would tell her mama to expect three more for Thanksgiving dinner. But she didn’t get the words out because as her gaze skimmed the restaurant’s dining room, it landed directly on her best friend, Shelby, who was staring at her and Ted.