“Give me an example,” he requested.
She thought for a second. “We play with stuff. I like to make sensory bins where kids can squish and experience sensations. I fill bins with spaghetti, pudding, jello, sand, beads, beans, water beads, and anything else I can think of. Then we just play and make the sensations fun.”
“A tub of jello sounds like fun to me,” he agreed. “Do you have any ideas for Tyson?”
She grinned. “I do.” This was the part of her job that she loved. She loved figuring out what would help an individual child get past a fear. “I’d love to get some water stuff for him. Things like squirt guns and water balloons. Anything that gets him wet and makes water a fun and pleasant sensation. He doesn’t like the way water feels on his face, so the goal would be to make it so much fun that it’s no longer unpleasant to be wet.”
“Does it work?” Dylan asked.
“Depends on the kid,” she admitted. “Each kid needs a different approach, and it takes time. It’s important to remember that their behaviors aren’t naughty or bad. They’re just overwhelmed. It’s hard to un-overwhelm.”
Dylan smiled. “You must love your work.”
She crinkled her brow but smiled. “Why do you say that?”
“You light up when you talk about this,” he told her. “You’re practically glowing, and your whole body is animated.”
Her cheeks instantly heated and she folded her hands on the table.
Dylan reached across the table. “It’s a good thing,” he said. “It’s beautiful. I’m sorry your ex took it away from you.”
“My ex?” Bonnie repeated confused. She caught herself before blowing her story. “Oh, right. My ex.”
She shrugged and quickly tried to think of something to say to make it less awkward. Luckily, the waiter returned then with their drinks. She gulped at her water, grateful for the interruption.
“I guess that you’re pretty over him,” Dylan said, taking a small sip of his lemonade.
She inhaled and took in a lungful of water. She started coughing and sputtering. “What?”
“Your ex,” he repeated. “You sound over him.”
“Right. Right, my ex.” She cleared her throat and set her glass down. “We were officially over when things went south. I thought we’d moved on.”
She’d rehearsed this lie several times, but she hated telling it to Dylan. She didn’t want to lie to him. She wanted to tell him everything, but she didn’t want to put him in that position either. It wasn’t fair to drag him into her issues with them.
“What happened?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice. It made her guilt deepen.
“We broke up. Then, a few weeks ago, I came home and found my house on fire,” she told him. It was sort of close to the truth. She tried to keep her story as close to the truth as possible. It made her less likely to slip up.
“Did you go to the police?” he asked, his dark eyes concerned for her.
“Of course, but there was no definitive proof that I was in danger,” she explained. She remembered her nightmare. “The fire investigator said that I left my book on the stove and it caught fire. It happens.”
“Did you leave a book?” he asked.
“I’d never seen the book before,” she explained. “It was called, ‘You’re Next.’ They also found the remains of the rest of the series in the kitchen. Their titles were ‘Dead Man Walking’ and ‘Dead and Deader.’ They weren’t my books.”
“He put them there?” he asked. “That’s a heck of a warning.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “So I ran. I know that he’s out there. I think I’m safe for now. I’ve crossed state lines, and I don’t think he has a good way to track me, but...”
She shrugged. She hoped they weren’t tracking her. She hoped that they still had the wrong last name for her. She knew her files were being monitored by the police. She would hopefully get some warning if they accessed anything the police had marked. But that wasn’t something she had control over. Anxiety crept up in her chest.
She needed to change the subject.
“So, is this the main restaurant in town, or are there others I need to try?” she asked with a smile.