Part of Your World(17)

She laughed, and I felt her decision tip.

“Okay,” she said finally. “But I’ll come to you. I won’t be able to get there for another three hours though. I don’t live close.”

I looked at my watch. It was four o’clock. “So what I’m hearing is you’re staying the night.”

“Uh…”

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll put you up in the B & B,” I said quickly. “Your own room. It’s closed for the season, so you’ll have the whole house to yourself.”

“Are you sure?”

I felt myself deflate a notch hearing she didn’t want to sleep next to me. But beggars can’t be choosers, and this was obviously something that had freaked her out the last time. “I’m sure. And come hungry. I’ll make us dinner. I got dinosaur nuggets.”

She laughed again. “Okay.”

We exchanged cell phone numbers and I gave her the address to the house. Then I hung up and turned around to Liz and Doug standing directly behind me. They were both beaming.

“She’s coming?” Liz asked, looking excited.

I dragged a hand down my mouth. “Yeah.” And then the anxiety hit me. “What the hell am I gonna do with her?”

Doug scoffed. “I think you know what to do with her, buddy.”

I gave him a look. “You know what I’m talking about.”

It was the off-season. Nothing was open. We didn’t even have a movie theater. I couldn’t even take her for ice cream, nothing.

What the hell did people in big cities do? What did we do? Bonfires? The VFW? Drive around?

“Take her for a drive,” Doug said, like he was reading my mind.

Panic ripped through me.

“She likes you,” Liz said. “She’s coming here because she wants to see you. That’s good enough.”

Was it? I mean, what the hell did I have to offer a woman like her?

Well…there was one thing. And I must have done a pretty good job of it if she was driving two hours to have it again. At least there was that.

“Just keep her laughing,” Doug said. “When a woman laughs, her eyes are closed more. She won’t notice how ugly you are.”

I snorted, despite myself.

“Call Brian,” Liz suggested. “See if he can help.”

I nodded. That was a good idea. “Okay. Okay, what else?”

Doug threw back the rest of the Coke he was holding. “I’ll make the food. I can drop off a basket in a couple of hours.”

“Really?”

He grabbed his jacket off the back of a barstool. “Yeah, really. I’ll even throw in the good cheese.”

I nodded, feeling slightly better. Doug did wine tastings at his farm in the summer. He was a beekeeper and made his own goat cheese and honey. He actually knew how to put together a nice spread.

“Pick her flowers,” Liz said. “Women like effort.”

I nodded. Effort. Got it.

With that figured out, I ran home.

Three hours felt like a lot, but it wasn’t. I had to open the house up and get the best bedroom ready. I cleaned out my truck, which sounded like less work than it ended up being. I don’t think I’d ever washed it—it was a work truck almost as old as I was. I cleaned my loft, my bathroom. I had to feed Chloe and change her pajamas. By the time I got in the shower, I had thirty minutes left.

I was so damn nervous. I felt like I was getting a second shot at—I didn’t even know what.

She sent me a “be there in five” text, and I came outside with Hunter and grabbed Chloe from her pen. I crouched in the driveway and looked my dog in the eye. “Okay, buddy. No more messing around, got it? No jumping—hey! Look at me. NO JUMPING. You see how good Chloe is? This is the kind of energy I need you to bring to this situation.”

Hunter leaned over and licked Chloe on the nose, and she made a cute little bleat noise.

“And do your business in the woods. We’ve got a whole forest. You don’t need to do that in front of the garage. Best behavior.”

Hunter didn’t look like he had any idea what I was talking about and started scratching his neck. His collar made a jingling full rotation, and then he stopped and blinked at me. His ear was inside out.

Hunter was a six-year-old retired hunting dog I’d gotten from a rescue. I’d only had him three months. He was a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. He looked perpetually confused and was the worst listener I’d ever met—which was weird, because the previous owner told the rescue he was fully trained. Hunting dogs were strong-willed by design, but this one…

I eyed him. “Some help you’re gonna be,” I mumbled.

I heard the sound of wheels on gravel and stood. My heart started to pound.

I had a quick second of what-if. What if the chemistry was gone or the attraction didn’t feel the same, or I’d built her up in my head and she wasn’t like I remembered?

And the second I saw her, I knew I hadn’t imagined a thing.





Chapter 8

Alexis



I’d called him. I’d called him, and I was going back down there.

What in the world was I doing?

It was such a spontaneous thing, I didn’t even really think it through. One minute I was standing in my living room, debating what to order from Grubhub for dinner, and the next I was Googling the VFW in Wakan and calling the number.