Dustin wasn’t Mr. Right. But he might be Mr. Right Now.
So what was she going to do about it?
Chapter Two
As Dustin slept, Jenna spent the afternoon helping Andy with his reading. He was making painfully slow progress, but it was progress just the same. They still had a lot of work to do yet.
“Sound out the word, Andy,” she advised. “You’d know the word if you broke it down to smaller words or sounds.”
“Cot … ton … wood,” he said slowly.
“It’s a tree,” Dustin said from the doorway.
He was hanging over his crutches and looked more than a little rumpled.
“Hey, Uncle Dustin!” Andy said, his cute little face brimming with happiness. “Did you have a good sleep? Aunt Jenna said that it’s important, that you’ll get better faster.”
“That’s just what my doctor said, buckaroo.” He smiled at Andy, then turned to Jenna. “I didn’t mean to disturb your lesson.”
Andy answered instead. “You didn’t.” He slid his chair away from the kitchen table and looked hopefully at his aunt.
“Can I go now?”
“Finish the paragraph first,” Jenna said.
He pulled his chair back and glanced at the page. “The cot-ton-wood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years.”
Dustin cleared his throat. “The cottonwood tree is a good, sturdy tree, Andy. We had one on my father’s ranch, and he found out that it’s been around for four hundred years.” He paused. “That’s almost as old as your father.”
Andy giggled until Jenna thought he was going to fall out of the chair. Then Dustin pointed to the reading workbook and Andy sobered.
“The cottonwood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years,” Andy read once again, then turned to her. “Just like Uncle Dustin said.”
“I think we can stop for today, Andy,” she said with a sigh.
Dustin put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I saw a basketball hoop hanging from the barn wall. What do you say we shoot some hoops?”
“Awesome!” Andy replied.
“You’re going to have to spot me some points,” Dustin said.
“Don’t do it, Andy,” advised Jenna. “Dustin was an awesome basketball player in high school, and an awesome quarterback, besides being a champion rodeo rider.”
Dustin raised an eyebrow and looked at her strangely. “So, you remember that much about me from high school?”
“Well, you were Tom’s best friend. He always talked about you. Besides, I went to the games. I saw you play.” Absolutely she remembered him. Who wouldn’t? He’d always been the perfect jock.
Dustin’s eyes twinkled and a smile lit his face. He seemed … pleased by her answer.
Then he winked at Jenna, and her mouth went dry. Darn it. One wink from him in her freshman year of high school would have provided her with four years’ worth of joy. But they weren’t in high school anymore—and she’d have to remember that.
“I want ten points,” Andy insisted.
“I’ll spot you ten points only, and that’s highway robbery,” Dustin protested good-naturedly, continuing the banter.
Jenna knew that the big, lanky cowboy would give Andy anything that he wanted. She knew Dustin’s generosity from talking to Tom, and it never failed to tweak her when it came to the boy’s birthday, just a bit.
It seemed like Dustin always knew the perfect gifts for a growing boy—a dirt bike, a basketball, a bat and glove—whereas she saw to it that he had a supply of nice clothes for school and books befitting his age.
Of course, Andy’s excitement and thankful hugs would be for the fun things, rather than the practical, so Jenna was grudgingly glad that Dustin’s gifts made Andy happy. Sure, she could have given him toys and such, but he was growing so fast, and needed clothes. Besides, she always felt the need to be his stand-in mother in the place of the ever-unhappy and lethargic Marla who’d think about shopping for Andy when school was well underway.
As she put together a lasagna for dinner, she could hear the easy dialogue between Dustin and Andy through the open window.
“You shoot like a girl,” Andy said.
“I’m on crutches, for Pete’s sake.”
“I want twenty points from you. Twenty. Even though you shoot like a girl, you still can shoot,” Andy said.
“No way, kiddo. We settled for ten.”
“Hey, we didn’t shake on it.”
And on and on it went. Jenna slipped the lasagna into the refrigerator and went outside to join them.
“Want to play, Jenna?” Dustin asked when he saw her approach.
“I was just going to watch.”
“C’mon and play along with us. You can be on my team,” Dustin said.
“That’s not fair,” Andy whined.
“What if I give you twenty points?” Dustin asked.
“Thirty.”
“Done.”
Dustin tossed Jenna the ball. She took a shot. Perfect!
“Beginner’s luck,” she said with a grin. And it was beginner’s luck. She wasn’t much of a jock.
Ironically, as she started making the occasional basket, Dustin began to miss shot after shot. Unless he was letting Andy win.
How sweet of him.
But, she thought wryly, she didn’t have to let Andy win. She wasn’t that great a player, and most of her shots bounced off the rim.
Despite their good-natured fun, she was all-too aware when Dustin took off his shirt and she saw more proof of his strength.
Suddenly, she felt hot, breathless and shocked at her reaction to him. Mercifully, she’d thought to bring out three bottles of water. She grabbed one and took a long draw, desperate to cool herself and calm her racing pulse.
“Break,” she yelled, pushing her bangs off her forehead. She handed both of them a bottle of water. “Dustin needs to rest for a while.”
Dustin smiled his thanks, gingerly lowered himself onto a bench and took a long drink. Jenna could see his strong neck move as he swallowed.
She
