Something to Talk About by Dakota Cassidy

know him much growing up—he was two years older than me and always with Dixie and Caine—but it didn’t take long for me to recognize, Landon knew his heart. He knew how to love people, and he knew how to show it.”
    Jax sat still, his eyes on her face, his fingers moving over her arm.
    Too intense. Too intimate. Way to frighten the man while you’re just bein’ you. She drew her hand back, embarrassed by her obsession with a romantic tale. “Sorry. I’m just a silly romantic who loves a happy ending. Sometimes I get carried away.”
    Jax pulled it back into his grasp and held it there. “Personally, I think it’s attractive on you. Especially the way your eyes light up when you talk about it. It sounds like you grew to love him as much as everyone else seemed to. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
    His approval was so warm in her ears, so unlike Clifton’s disapproval when she found a cause she wanted to support, or became too loud in her defense of something, that was so intense she had to change the subject.
    “You have a beautiful house,” she said, craning her neck to get the full view of the old farmhouse with a wraparound front porch that went on for days. It needed work. The paint was peeling, the windows were sagging, the trees and shrubs were overgrown and out of control, but Em didn’t see that. She saw the possibilities.
    His chuckle was thick when he leaned over and gently shifted her chin to point her in the direction of the full view of the house. “Are you kidding? Do you see what I see? It’s a dump. It doesn’t need a renovation, it needs a bomb squad.”
    Em shrugged and smiled, lost in her mind’s revival of Jax’s home. “Well, you see what you see, and I’ll see what I see. What I see is beyond that, and this amazin’ house has tremendous possibilities. It could be a real showstopper. Add in the gorgeous location, the creek and the two acres of land, and it could be a divine place to hang your hat. That porch for instance, can’t you just see it in the summer? Close your eyes and picture ivy climbin’ up the trellis at each end. Hanging plants all along the porch full of petunias and trailing geraniums. Potted plants lining those wide steps in the fall in a riot of colorful mums and big fat pumpkins carved for Halloween. Maybe a vegetable garden over there where that patch of dead grass and leftover bricks are. Antique white rocking chairs to sit on with a glass of sweet tea while you listen to the creek. It could be magnificent—just breathtaking. And think about how much Maizy would love a swing right over there in that big oak.” She pointed to it with her finger, closing her eyes and exhaling to stop her rambling.
    When she opened them, Jax’s eyes were crinkling up into another smile, an indulgent one. “You know, when you describe it, I can almost see it. You really like the DIY thing, don’t you?”
    Realizing her enthusiasm had taken over again, probably making her sound rabid, Em toned it down. She lowered her voice a notch when she said, “I do. I love taking nothing and making it something. I love fixing what others think is unsalvageable. And I like knowing I did it myself.”
    “Where does that come from?”
    “What?”
    “The need to say you did it yourself?”
    Em pulled back. “Did that come out like someone was stopping me from doin’ what I like? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that it was anything more than me stopping myself. But nowadays, I just have a lot of...free time.”
    His eyes pierced hers, blue and intense as he drew her back toward him, his hand strong on her arm, his face so close to hers she could see the twitch in his hard jaw. “You mean since your divorce?”
    A hard knot had formed in her throat, one she had to fight the words around to get them out of her mouth.
    She lifted her shoulders in a “maybe” shrug. “I guess.” Once the boys were in bed, it was just her and a long, lonely night. She’d decided early on, she