Andrew Guilardi was small in stature but big in curiosity.

Gabe didn’t appreciate curiosity.

“How do you even breathe with all that yammering?” he muttered as the kid followed him toward the back of the store.

“I’ve been practicing holding my breath in the bathtub,” Andrew answered, clearly missing the rhetorical nature of the question. “Did you know Navy SEALs can hold their breath for two or three minutes?”

The sound of the chimes over the front door gave Gabe an excuse to move past the boy. “A customer,” he ground out, tossing a pointed stare at Andrew. “I have actual work to do.”

“I’ll wait.” Andrew climbed onto one of the stools near the worktable. “I don’t got much homework.”

The kid couldn’t take a clue if Gabe handed it to him.

He let out a soft curse at the woman striding toward him. “Where is he?” she demanded, like Gabe was holding the boy hostage or something.

“Hi, Mom,” Andrew called as he heard his mother’s voice. “Me and Gabe are hanging out.”

One feathery brow arched as she glared at Gabe, her dark eyes flashing with temper. They often did when her gaze met his, which was complete bull because Gabe had done nothing to Angi Guilardi. After the hell she and her snotty friends had put him through when he was a goofy, misfit preteen, he didn’t even want to look at Angi.

Especially based on how his body reacted to her. He chalked that up to having a pulse. No one could look at Angi, with her tall, willowy form, olive-colored skin from her Italian heritage, dark hair and eyes and not appreciate her beauty.

But looks could be deceiving, and Gabe had learned that the hard way with Angi. Since returning to town, he’d done his best to avoid her, although working with Emma at the Wildflower Inn had made that more difficult.

He managed. Managing was his specialty.

“He won’t leave,” he said under his breath. “Trust me, I tried.”

She sniffed. “I can only imagine. Why is he here?”

“He wants me to tell him about my military career.”

“What the...why... I don’t understand.”

After the initial shock, though, Gabe had a feeling she understood more than she was telling him about why her son had sought out Gabe. When he came to Magnolia in the spring, he hadn’t made a huge deal about his career or the accolades he’d received throughout his stint in the army. He’d rather not think about that time, at least if he wanted to get more sleep. But it was a small town and people talked.

His grandmother was a popular resident and her store a fixture in downtown, even if it was somewhat musty and in need of a thorough cleaning. This was something Gabe hadn’t bothered with over the past eight months because it had felt that admitting the store was a mess would only make him more culpable for not being there when his grandma had needed him.