Free Carry Her Heart by Holly Jacobs Page A

her, JP.”
    “Lovely for sure,” he agreed.
    “Thanks.” They pulled away and I resisted a sigh of relief. I adore my parents, but my mother worried far too much about me. I was thirty-one and had proven quite capable of taking care of myself.
    I went back into the house and realized the door had blown shut. And my door automatically locked when it was closed.
    I didn’t even have a cell phone.
    I might have worried, but Ned’s car was in the drive. I knocked on his door, praying Ned, not Mela, opened it.
    He did.
    “Can I have the key to my house, please?” I asked.
    “Wow,” he said as he looked at me.
    I pushed my dress down, and then dragged a stray curl from my cheek to behind my ear. “Thanks, I think.”
    “You’re welcome. You do look nice,” Ned said.
    There it was . . . nice again. Mom would not be pleased.
    “Locked yourself out again?” he asked.
    “No place to tuck keys in a getup like this.”
    “Come on in before you go all Marilyn in that wind.”
    It took me a minute to realize that he was referring to Marilyn Monroe. I stepped into his house as he walked down the hall to the kitchen. To be honest, Ned came to my house far more often than I came here. I’m not sure why. His house was a nice enough place. And he wasn’t one of those single guys who live in a mess just because they could.
    No, his place was probably far neater than mine, but that was because Ned’s place was Spartan.
    Ned had the bare minimum of furniture. A couch, a recliner, and a huge flat-screen television that dominated the living room.
    I’d never been up to his bedroom, but I imagined it was much the same. A bed. A dresser. And not much else.
    He came back with the key. “You could have come in.”
    “I wanted to keep an eye out in case Anthony showed up early.”
    “He’s not an early kind of guy,” Ned said. “Or a running-late kind of guy. He’s the kind of guy who shows up precisely on time. Someone solid you can count on.”
    He didn’t sound convinced that those were good traits, but I thought they were. “Good to know.”
    “Have a nice time,” he said.
    “I will. Thanks.”
    Rather than going back inside, he followed me across the driveway to my porch. “I’ll take the key back because odds are you’ll need it sooner rather than later.”
    “I’ve only locked myself out a couple times.”
    He snorted. “I’ve only had the key a year and this is your third time. So that means you lock yourself out an average of once every four months.”
    “You locked yourself out once as well.”
    “No. Mela did. She left to go home while I was out on a walk and locked the door, not realizing I didn’t have a key. So technically, she locked me out.”
    I used the key and handed it back to him just as a car pulled in the drive. “And that’s my cue,” Ned said. “Have a good time.”
    Ned stopped to shake Anthony’s hand as my date got out of his car. Then Ned went inside and left just Anthony and me. I held the door open as I waited for Anthony. I swear I could feel my curls bopping their way out of my mother’s styling.
    “Hi,” I said as he came up on the porch. “I just have to run in and grab a coat and my purse.”
    “No hurry. We’ve got time.”
    I wasn’t sure what to do, so I said, “Do you want to come in?”
    “Sure.” He stepped inside and I knew the hall he was looking at was the antithesis of Ned’s. He glommed in on my antique, cast-iron firefighter symbols. “I like these.”
    “They were my grandfather’s. My mother’s father. He was a fireman here in town. Dad’s dad was a teacher.” I’m not sure why I added that. It didn’t have anything to do with the firefighter symbols and it felt awkward.
    “My grandfathers were both railroad men,” Anthony said. I think he said it more to put me at ease than from any dire need to share his grandfathers’ occupations.
    I grabbed my coat and purse, checking that I’d put the house keys in my bag. “Shall we?” I