The Marine's Second Chance by Victoria Pade

Author:Victoria Pade
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-01-31T16:08:06+00:00

Chapter Seven

“Hi. I’m stuck behind the one-ten,” Dalton informed Marli on his cell phone.

“Oh, I forgot about that. I must have gotten over the tracks just in time. Sorry that you’ll have to wait through it. I’ll go ahead and get started putting away the tarps and cleaning up from last night—”

“I can walk faster than this thing is moving. But I’ll be there when it finally passes. And just so you know, old man Johnson still moves his herd across the road to his other field when the train is going through.”

“Ohhh,” Marli groaned in sympathy. “Roll up your windows and close your vents—you know how much dung gets dropped along the way.”

“Ah, country joys...” Dalton said facetiously. “I’ll be there eventually,” he reiterated, ending the call and setting his phone on the passenger seat.

The coal train came through Merritt at approximately ten minutes after one on the third Friday of every month—hence why locals had come to call it the one-ten. If you got stuck behind it, there was no way around it and nothing to do but wait it out. Dalton did take Marli’s advice, though, rolling up his window and closing his vents.

Then he draped both wrists over the top of the steering wheel as he watched the cows cross the road as slowly as the fully loaded train cars lumbering by. It was almost as if they were in sync.

The back of the Camden family truck that Dalton was using while he was home was loaded with Marli’s office furniture. While performing his informal surveillance of Holt this morning, he’d spotted Marli loading things from the Abbott garage into the trunk of her car. It had reminded him that she’d mentioned she was going to bring furniture to her office today.

He hadn’t thought about it until spotting her, but when he’d realized she had nothing but her sedan for transport, it had occurred to him that he had use of the truck. Like yesterday, he had nothing much to do and the availability of his grandfather to keep an eye on the Abbott house for him.

Why not help her out, he’d asked himself, finding the idea decidedly alluring—it was probably the first time since the dawn of man that anyone had ever found the idea of helping someone move to be a turn-on.

He’d recognized that that meant the true allure was in having an excuse to spend today with Marli.

Which he told himself also meant he shouldn’t make the offer.

Tossing and turning through the night, he’d recognized that what was going on between them was not good.

Or actually, it was too good.

Kissing, full-on making-out to the point of starting to think about laying her down on that office carpet and finishing things, had been about as ill-advised as anything he’d ever done. His relationship with Marli had run its course and ended ugly years before, so there was nothing dumber than spending any time with her, let alone kissing her and stirring up ideas of more than that.

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