“So, do you like jewelry?”
Yeah…now this date is back on track. I can easily answer that question in the affirmative. Earrings, rings, bracelets, pins, necklaces, you name it. I love it all. The only thing that surpasses my love of jewelry is my love of shoes. And my closet shows it. There’s a lot of love in the closet at Casa de Kate.
I nod my head in response. “Sure. What girl doesn’t? Kind of makes one feel like a princess.” I toss a smile over in his direction.
“Yeah, my ex-fiancée did too. When we got engaged, I bought her a two-carat round-cut ring, with three diamonds on each side.”
For the love… The ex-fiancée again? My whole Princess Kate scenario just got extinguished like the Wicked Witch of the West. It was all I could do not to answer with “I’m melting.”
I settled for “Sounds pretty,” instead.
“Oh, yeah, it was great. I let her keep it when I moved. So, what’s your favorite cut of diamond? I’m guessing you’re a marquise kind of girl. Solitaire.”
“Uh…emerald cut. Three stone. I guess.”
The date was a bit like being in a hurricane. One minute the winds of dating were blowing fair from the south. Then in an instant, they whipped around from the north and boom! Chaos struck.
I mean, I like sparkly stuff as much as any girl. But engagement rings? On a first date?
Nice guys move fast, apparently. I am not used to this. We’re exiting toward my apartment, so it seems like a good time for a subject change.
“So, let’s get to know you a bit better. Tell me about your best friend,” I say.
“Well, let’s see. I guess that would be Craig. He’s actually my cousin. He’s an investment banker now, with a wife and three kids. What about you? Who’s your best friend?”
“Hmmm… Probably Mimi. She is my roommate. I’m several years older than her, so she’s practically my little sister.” I omit the small detail that she’s my ex-boyfriend’s sister. I’ll not have both of us using the word “ex” tonight.
Paul looks over at me. “So, what’s she going to say about being replaced?”
What? My hand reaches out and clutches the handle on the car door. If I look at him, my brow will furrow again. I don’t want to encourage any more lines to form on my forehead tonight.
“I’m sorry, Paul, I don’t understand the question, I don’t think.” He turns into the driveway at my apartment complex and looks over at me as the heavy gate rolls open across the driveway to let us in.
“Well, since you and I are together now and are going be spending a lot of time with one another, I was just wondering what she was going to say about being replaced by a new friend in your life.”
I cannot believe what I’ve just heard. The opening of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” plays in my head. This guy is too much for me. In the ten-minute ride home, we’ve discussed ex-fiancées, engagement rings, and his desire to become my new best friend.
What happened to meeting a nice guy and having it made? Al Brown—and my mother—have some serious explaining to do.
A wave of thankfulness washes over me as we turn the corner in the parking lot nearest to my building. I have never been more thrilled to see my apartment than right now.
“Paul, Mimi’s irreplaceable.” Paul pulls into the parking space by my door. I take advantage of his application of the brake to further emphasize my point by opening the car door. “Thanks for the evening, but I’ve really got to go.” With one fluid move, I unbuckled the seatbelt, then slid out of the car. I didn’t think I could stay in there much longer.
My first real, bonafide, nice-guy date. Yeah, there was a verse in the Bible for this. I’d have to make sure my mother was aware of it.
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.
* * *
I walk in the door to my apartment and kick off my slingbacks with the kitten heel.
Wow, that so did not go as planned.
I head for my bedroom so I can put my purse up in the closet, and as I pull my phone out, I notice that I’ve got a message.
Surely, it wasn’t Paul calling from the parking lot. Paul was supposed to be the answer to all the details I’ve been looking for in a man. My godfather knew him and recommended we get to know each other. He grew up steeped in church, which my mom kept telling me was so important, and he still attends church now. But yet, Paul did not turn out to be the person he initially seemed he would be.
I punch the voicemail button with a fervent hope that it is anyone but my recent date.
“Hey, Kate. It’s Jack. I hope you don’t mind that I’m calling. I only have your work number, so I had to call someone at Brown & Company to ask them for your cell. But I promise I’m not a stalker.” After the last three and a half hours, Jack Cooper has no idea what it means to be a creepy stalker. “Anyway, I had a really nice time at lunch today with you, and I wanted to thank you again for listening yesterday. I also wanted to see if you had a lunch hour open this week. If you can, give me a call back tonight. My number is 512-555-3460. Have a great evening. Talk to you soon.”
After the evening I’ve just had, Jack’s voice is reassuring. For all that Paul did not wind up being who I thought he would be, Jack Cooper turned out to be a surprise today as well.
I hit redial on my phone before I even have a chance to think about what I’m doing.
“Hello?” A sleepy voice carried across the line.
“Jack? It’s Kate. I was returning your call. Did I wake you up?”
“Huh? Kate? Uh, not really. I was watching a movie and I guess I fell asleep on the couch.”
Great. I repeatedly stick my foot in my mouth around Jack, I dump water in my lap, and now I wake the poor guy up. He’ll probably just conveniently forget that he extended me an invitation to have lunch with him. “I’m so sorry to wake you up, Jack.”
“Kate, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. It’s good to hear your voice.”
“Really?” There’s that tingle in the pit of my stomach I was wondering about earlier.
“Yeah. It is. You’re good to talk to. You’re a little goofy sometimes, but you’re good to talk to. I never talk about my mom, for example, but it wasn’t hard to talk about her with you. That’s why I called. I wanted to say thank you.”
“You mentioned that in your message.”
“Yeah. Thank you. I’ve still got a lot of things to resolve in my mind and put behind me, but you started the ball rolling.”
“Jack, that’s wonderful. I’m glad to hear it. You’ve been carrying that burden around far too long.”
“I know.” A heavy pause in conversation settles between us. “Did you hear the other part of my message?”
“Sure, the part about you being a stalker?” I can’t help but tease him. It’s gotten too serious all of a sudden.
“That wasn’t the part I was talking about. I meant about going to lunch this week.”
“Yes, I heard that part too. I think my calendar is open at lunch every day this week? Do you want me to bring anyone else from the team?”
“Kate, I’m not asking you to a business lunch. I want to see you, talk to you. Just you.”
“Oh.” It’s a simple syllable, but it seemed to sum up my shock nicely. Yesterday, I thought Jack was rude and distant towards me. Today, he’s asked me out not once, not twice, but three times—lunch after church, the Zoo Donors’ Ball, and now lunch this week.
When Jack Cooper turns the tables, he really flips ‘em completely over.
“‘Oh?’ Kate, honestly, you don’t make it easy on a guy. First I ask you out for Saturday night and you spill water in your lap. Now I ask you to lunch, and all you say is ‘oh’.”
“Um, I definitely meant ‘yes.’ Lunch sounds very nice.”
“Okay, good. How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Memorial Day, Jack. It’s a holiday.”
“Oh, that’s right. So, do you already have plans?”
I hate to admit it, but with M
imi off with her family, and my parents leaving for their cruise, I actually don’t have plans for Memorial Day. “Well, now that you mention it, I am utterly free of plans.”
“Well, I might head back out to Wimberley for the day. Would you like to join me? I’d be honored to have you visit the ranch when it’s Chimp-free.”
I want to giggle. He remembered our conversation from earlier. That could be bad if it ever gets out around the office. If that happens, I definitely won’t be laughing. “You’re not going to tell anyone about that Chimp thing, are you, Jack?”
“Not as long as you promise to spend the day with me tomorrow.”
“You drive a hard bargain.”
“I know. It’s what I was raised to do. I’ll pick you up at ten o’clock, then?”
“That sounds good, Jack. I’m looking forward to it.” I find myself a bit surprised at just how sincerely I mean that last sentence. In spite of all the awkwardness at the ranch yesterday, I am looking forward to a return trip out to that scenic patch of the Hill Country. I give him directions to my apartment.
“Great. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, too. I’ll see you in the morning then. G’night, Kate.”
“Good night, Jack.”
The line goes quiet and my phone blinks at me.
I know it’s clichéd, but I think it’s true. When a door closes—in tonight’s case, the crazy date with Paul—a window opens. But you’ve gotta take a leap of faith right straight through it.
Am I ready to jump?
10
There are instances in which non-human primates have been reported to have expressed joy.— ‘Chimpanzees’ on Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org
* * *
“Good morning, Kate.”
Jack stands at the door, holding a bunch of the largest, most vibrantly yellow sunflowers I have ever seen. He leans in quickly and gives me a hug. As his arms fold around me, a sensation like static electricity shoots through every fiber of my body. This is a real hug, real contact. Nothing accidental or tentative like that embrace near his mother’s mirror.
He’s solid; I gratefully hold on to both him and the shared moment.
When he pulls out of the hug, he offers the flowers my way. There are a dozen stems along with eucalyptus as an accent, all wrapped together in cellophane and tied with a large natural raffia bow. “These are for you.”
“They’re beautiful, Jack. Would you like to come in for a moment while I put them in water?” I have a flashback to last night. The rose from Paul sits in a bud vase on my end table in the living room and it catches Jack’s eye as he walks inside.
“More flowers?”
“Oh, it was a gift.” Hopefully, he’ll leave it alone. It’ll be too awkward to explain this one.
“A gift? Of one rose? Did someone get you a membership to the ‘Bud Vase of the Month’ club?”
I can’t help but chuckle a bit. “No, silly. I…uh…I had a date last night.”
“Oh, so that’s where you were when I called.” He looks over at me with a look that can best be described as the visual representation of the phrase curiosity killed the cat.
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Nosy, yes, it was.”
“Anyone I know?” Jack follows me into the kitchen and begins to stick the sunflower stems in the vase as I trim them down and lay them on the counter.
“No, I shouldn’t think so.” By not over-answering his questions, I hope he’ll just drop it.
Apparently not. “Wait a second. It was that other guy that you were talking to after church yesterday, wasn’t it?”
Bother. He’s got me there. “Yes, it was.”
“And how was it?”
How am I supposed to answer that? In between Jack’s asking me to the Zoo Donors’ Ball and his asking me out for today, I went on a date with someone else. This is getting more awkward than watching those films they show you in junior high health class.
I guess the best thing to do is to be honest both with Jack and myself.
“I don’t think we’ll be going out again.”
Jack twists his lips together. “Okay. That’s good.”
I shake my head a bit as I finish trimming the last floral stem and hand it to Jack. “It’s good that I had a bad date and am not going out with this guy again?”
“That’s not exactly what I meant, Kate. But it is good that you’re not…otherwise occupied.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Come on, let’s go. The Hill Country is calling us both.”
Outside Austin, Jack takes the Jeep through some back roads to get to Wimberley. Once again, no windows or roof complete the Wrangler. But this time, I’m prepared. I have my hair in a ponytail and a white baseball cap with green lettering bearing the name of my alma mater—Baylor University—on top of my head. I will not be turned into a traveling porcupine today.
“So, you’re a Bear?” Jack nods in the direction of my cap.
“Yup. A proud Baylor Bear. Where did you go to school?”
We stop just in front of a one-lane bridge in order to let the car on the other side cross. “Me? I went to UT for both my undergrad and graduate degrees. I never made it out of Austin. Of course, Baylor’s just up the road, so you didn’t make it too far, either.”
“No, I didn’t. Baylor was great though—it was just far enough away from home that I had to learn some self-reliance, but close enough that I could still take laundry home.”
“Good plan, Cormick.” Jack puts on the turn signal and smiles boyishly. “I went to the UT game against Baylor last year. I have season tickets here.”
We continue in the vein of idle collegiate conversation. It’s pleasant, but not too heavy. “I was there too. This season, the game is at Baylor. You’ll have to come with me. I have some friends who host a big tailgate party. My friend Brian makes some of the best barbeque in the state on game day.”
We reach River Road, and Jack makes a right-hand turn onto the narrow street with the great vistas. “I’d like that a lot, Kate. It should be quite the game this year. Y’all have a new quarterback who looks really good. Put it on your calendar and we’ll be there together.”
I feel a little funny making plans with Jack for something that’s happening in October. I mean, anything could happen between now and then.
And then again, something could happen between now and then. The possibilities seem to be wide open.
“Here we are, ranch sweet ranch.” Jack punches the code to open the main gate, and we pull under the metal archway which says “Cielo Blanco Ranch” in tall, white letters. A Texas flag flies on the right side of the gate, complemented by an American flag on the other side. The house is set on a small hill, far away from the road. I was in such a hurry to get out here Saturday that while I noticed the place was big and beautiful, I didn’t notice some of the smaller details, like the rows of wildflowers lining the road or the fresh coat of green paint on the shutters of the igloo-white main house. I truly didn’t think it was possible, but the ranch is even more breathtaking than it was just two days ago.
Since it has been fewer than forty-eight hours from my last trip to the ranch, pretty much everything else is exactly as I remember it. Somehow, though, everything is better.
Two days ago, I drove out here fighting a major office crush on Jack, then drove away hating myself for caring about him—and hating him for not caring about me.
Even though I’m excited about being here as a personal guest, I don’t know what to do about the one question which woke me up almost every hour, on the hour, last night.
“Jack, how do we handle this?”
He puts the Jeep in park in front of the main door to the house and gets out.
“Well, it’s pretty simple. You keep sitting there. Then I come over like this…and put my fingers in the door handle like so. Then I pull upwards, which releases the door, and you can get out of the car.” Jack makes a sweeping bow of exaggerated gentlemanliness as he swings the passenger-side door open for me
, and then I slide out, gratefully.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” My hand curls into a fist, and I give him a playful punch on the shoulder as I walk past him.
“Okay, then, what are you talking about?” He turns and considers my face with care.
“This.” I point at him, then back at myself several times in a rapid fashion, to illustrate my one syllable. “You and me. On a date. I mean, technically speaking, you’re my company’s client. There have got to be rules about this sort of thing.”
“And do you always follow the rules, Kate?”
Ha. If he only knew. Back in my school days, teachers loved me. My peers opined as to whether or not the phrase “goody-two-shoes” was coined specifically for me—and they weren’t talking about my love of footwear. In junior high, I was thirteen going on thirty, and everyone knew it.
Especially me…and all the guys who were never interested in asking me out to dances or the movies.
Except this guy. This one has asked me out repeatedly, even though I figure that he ought to be able to see my conformist ways pretty clearly, too.
“Yes,” I reply simply.
Jack chuckles. “Kate, you may walk the straight and narrow a lot—I know you’re a nice, caring girl. That’s one of the reasons I like you. But you’re also not afraid to stand up for something that’s right. I’ve seen you do it many times. You stepped in and handled that presentation when Laura Lynn was mucking it up. You even stood up for Logan here at the ranch when the Queen Chimp was trying to bully him into being her partner during the brainstorming exercise.”
Jack takes my hand and tugs on it. I step forward—almost involuntarily—in response. “Kate, you’re right. This is a little complicated right now. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it the whole time I was driving to your place this morning. And I’d be lying even more if I said I knew how everything was going to work out. Even so, I don’t want you to be concerned. We can handle it together. You’re a strong person.”
His eyes mellow from a clear sapphire to a smoky gray. “Scratch that. You’re a strong woman. And that, Kate Cormick, is why I wanted to ask you out.”
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