I rolled my eyes. “No,” I mumbled. “If you insist on helping, we can do it together, and by together, I mean you’re going to be stuck doing most of it because I only have one hand, but I’ll try my best.” I shrugged. “It would be nice to surprise him tomorrow. He’s spending the night with the Larsens today. You think we can get it done?”

The small smile that came over Dallas’s mouth was like a roman candle straight to my heart. “We can try our best,” he offered with all that patience and easygoing nature that cried out to me.

What I wouldn’t do for the best of Dallas Walker. But all I said was, “Okay. I’m ready when you are.”

“Give me fifteen so I can finish up here and get this thing across the street,” he compromised.

I nodded. “I’ll meet you in the backyard.”

It didn’t take him the full fifteen minutes to make his way over. I’d grabbed my gardening gloves from the shed while I waited and slipped one on, and after thinking about it for a moment, got my toolbox out again too. I still didn’t understand what had come over him that other night, but he hadn’t brought it up, and I wasn’t going to either. The only thing I wanted to talk about was where he had gone to, but I made a promise to myself I wasn’t going to ask. I wasn’t.

Dallas had come prepared too from the looks of it as he opened the gate and closed it behind him, giving Mac—who was outside with me—a rub on the head. Unfortunately, or I guessed fortunately, he’d put on a T-shirt. It was one of his threadbare shirts that he usually worked in from the stains all over random places on it.

“I know they’re old.”

I raised my eyes to his and frowned. “What?”

“My clothes,” he said, giving me his back as he went straight toward one of the crates, his hammer in his hand. He went ahead and pried the lid off with the claw side of the hammer. “I hate shopping.”

Straightening up, I kept frowning at him, suddenly embarrassed that he’d caught me looking at what he was wearing. “They’re fine,” I told him slowly. “The whole purpose is not to be naked, isn’t it?”

He “hmmed” as he moved to the corner of the box furthest away from me.

“I don’t buy new clothes that often either,” I tried to offer him. “If I didn’t have to dress up for work, I wouldn’t, and I’ve had all those for years now. The boys grow so fast and tear up their stuff so easily, they’re the only ones who get new things regularly in our house.”

“Nana’s always giving me grief over them,” he said, quietly or maybe he was just distracted, I wasn’t sure. “She says the ladies like a well-put-together man.”

That made me laugh. “Maybe for an idiot. I went on a few dates with this one guy a few years ago who dressed better than I did, and you know what? He lived with his parents and they still paid his car insurance. I know I’m not one to talk because it took me forever to get my shit together—and even now, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing half the time—but everyone should have some priorities in life. Trust me when I tell you, clothing isn’t everything.”

Dallas briefly glanced up at me as he moved to another corner with his hammer. “One of the only things I remember about my dad is that he never matched unless he was in his uniform. Ever. My mom laughed at how much effort he didn’t put into his clothes.” I could see the corner of his mouth tip into a smile at the memory, and just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. “When I tried living with my ex for those two months after I got back on land, she wouldn’t let me go anywhere with her unless I changed. She said I made her feel poor.”

Now I wasn’t just going to have to kill his future wife, I was going to have to kill his ex, too. God. My question came out more gritted than I’d intended. “And did you? Change?”

“For a few days.”

“You shouldn’t have had to try in the first place,” I told him, and he glanced up, a small smile on that bristly face.

“I should have if it really mattered to her that much, but I didn’t care enough. I’ve never been with anyone longer than a year, you know. Long-distance relationships don’t usually work, and I never tried one until her, but every couple I know who did it and survived, always compromised. You have to care about the other person’s feelings enough to not always be right or have your way. I don’t regret not trying to make it work, but if I’d loved her, I should have.”

Was it rude for me to think I was glad he hadn’t?

Before I could think about that too long, he threw out, “Now I know for next time.”

I was not going to sabotage any future relationships of his. I wasn’t.

Then what the hell was I going to do? I wondered. Move somewhere else? Find a boyfriend to maybe be half the man he was and hopefully he’d keep my mind off the one who lived across the street from me who I had all these… feelings for?

What the hell had I done? Why had I done this to myself? I knew better. I knew better than to like Dallas. And yet, I couldn’t help but ask, “Have you… had a lot of girlfriends?”

This man glanced over at me with a funny expression on his face before facing the crate again. “I’ve never been one of those guys with a new girl every week or every month.”

That still wasn’t an answer, and at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, all I did was mumble, “Hmm.” Either I was dying inside or this was what a serial killer felt like when he or she needed to get another fix. It could have been either or.