Free Brown Eyed Girl by Lori Leger Page B

meet your grandmother?”
    “ She and her sisters had gone to a dance and she saw him standing alone in a corner. My grandmother decided to be polite and went over and introduced herself. Pops had been in town less than a week, and spoke with a Scottish accent so thick my Maw Maw could barely understand him. But they danced together all night long. She taught him all the Cajun dances, and by the end of the night he was an expert.”
    “ Now I know where you get your dancing skills,” she teased.
    “ Maw Maw told me when she got home, her older sister asked if she didn’t mind all of that carrot red hair. Maw Maw told her she’d never noticed the color of his hair—all she’d seen were his blue eyes. She called him her red-haired, blue-eyed devil from Scotland—said he had just enough mischief in him to make life interesting. That’s who we have to blame for the red hair and freckles.”
    Tiffany’s eyes sparkled with laughter. “Don’t forget to give him credit for those beautiful blue eyes of yours. Besides, I don’t see any freckles on you.”
    Red groaned. “I outgrew them, thank God.”
    “ Do you remember your grandparents?”
    “ I remember my grandfather a little—he died when I was four. Maw Maw Bess was the sweetest lady. She passed away just after I graduated from college.” Red’s eyes misted over at the memory. “She missed that old man until the day she died.”
    “ Is that possible anymore, Red? Do people still have marriages like that?”
    “ Sure they do. Look at my parents.”
    “ I mean people who get married today . Are there any marriages like that for couples just starting out?”
    Red leveled a serious gaze on her. “Mine will be—I’m counting on it.”
    “ Good luck with that. It doesn’t seem possible with today’s lifestyle and divorce rate,” she added.
    “ That’s because too many people settle,” he said, as she sent him a look of amusement.
    “ That’s big talk for a thirty-eight year old bachelor.”
    He raised one brow. “I don’t want to settle.”
    “ Maybe you’re afraid of commitment.”
    Red gazed straight into Tiffany’s eyes. “I’m not afraid of anything. Not anymore.”
    “ Well,” she murmured, once she seemed to get past the hitch in her breathing. “Maybe you should be.”
    He held her gaze, wanting to prove how ready he was to take this on...to take her on.
    Tiffany tore her gaze away first and walked around the room checking out his display of photography. She stopped in front of a grouped collection of LSU baseball shots. “I’ve seen these before. I’d forgotten you and Tanner played the same years. What position did you play?”
    Red gradually closed the gap between them, and stood with his mouth near her ear. “First base,” he said, near enough to disturb her hair with his breath. He studied her delicate ear, fighting off the sudden urge to nibble on the velvety lobe. “What about you?” he asked. “You’re thirty-six and unmarried, so does that mean you’re afraid of commitment?”
    She twisted a lock of her hair around one finger. “I definitely have a problem with commitment, but at least I’m engaged.”
    “ For how long?”
    “ Um…Two years now.”
    “ Set a date yet?”
    “ No.”
    “ Why not?”
    “ Problem with commitment, remember?”
    He stepped closer. “Could be you have a problem with Tanner.”
    She took one step away from. “Could be,” she said, continuing to look at pictures until she stopped at a large leather bound book with the name Scott Brendan McAllister and the date January 28 th stamped in gold on its cover. “May I?”
    “ Go ahead.” Red watched her sit on the double lounger to open the book. She turned to the first page and gasped.
    “ I didn’t realize it was a photo album.”
    “ My mom went online to a company and had one made for each of us for Christmas last year.”
    “ I can’t imagine my mother going through that kind of trouble for Drake and me. You were a