by Jillian Hart
“If I remember right, your diner does a lot of catering for our church events.”
“I do what I can.” She shrugged a slender shoulder, the movement drawing his gaze to the elegant grace of her movements as she crossed her arms around her middle and gazed out the window in the direction of the main road through town, as if her thoughts were firmly with her son. “I don’t think I’ll know what to do with all the peace and quiet once he’s on his own, and that will be too bad, because I’ve gotten to like the chaos.”
She was gently teasing, he realized, his throat strangely aching again with emotions that he, like her, did not want to reveal. “Believe me, the quiet isn’t as nice as the chaos.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that. You’ve confirmed what I’ve already guessed.”
It was the way she confessed that, with a genuine flash of what looked like both regret and a mother’s deep love. Maybe that’s what hooked him like a fish on a line and tugged him so hard through the current of his own wounds that he wasn’t prepared for the speed of it. He wasn’t prepared at all.
He gaped at her, as if he couldn’t breathe the air, seeing the truth in Paige McKaslin in a way he’d never had the time or the reason to before. She was the woman who’d stayed when her husband left, everyone in town knew the story. She made a success of the diner with courtesy and hard work. She raised what appeared to be a great kid, and treated everyone she came across with courtesy and respect.
Why the words spilled over his tongue, he couldn’t say, or where they came from, but he couldn’t believe his own ears, even as he heard himself speak. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know about that Bible study over at the coffee shop on Wednesdays? I know it’s hosted by a woman from our church.”
“Sure. Katharine is my cousin—”
“I’ve been thinking about going—”
“You have?”
He paused. What was going on? Why was he trembling like a teenager asking a girl out on his first date?
He didn’t want to date. He didn’t want a woman, but he liked Paige. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from asking the question. “Would you come with me?”
“Oh, uh, as a friendly face, you mean?” She seemed confused. Her eyebrows slanted and she took a step back. Her hands flew out and she grabbed the coffeepot as if to shield her heart with it.
Not what I should have asked, he realized too late. He was forty-two years old. What was he doing? He was too old to start again. Too set in his ways to think about dating. Too wounded to ever trust another woman intimately.
He could take the chicken’s way out and agree, to say, sure, that’s what he wanted, a friendly face at the meeting. He could save himself a lot of embarrassment and risk to his heart if he just corrected his impulsive question with a simple nod.
But it wasn’t the truth. Not at all. “No,” he said in a choked voice, while the little voice in his head kept telling him to get up and run and never come back. “I meant would you go with me. As, a, well, as a d-date.”
Too late to take the words back, he watched the confusion slide from her lovely face. Horror widened her eyes. Big mistake, Thornton, he thought, surprised that the main thing he felt was remorse instead of relief. It made no sense, but it told him something. He admired Paige McKaslin. He liked a lot of things about her. It hurt to admit, but the truth was the truth.
She’s going to say no. Evan saw the answer on her face. And how she bit her bottom lip as she figured out how to turn him down.
Maybe he would save her the trouble. “Hey, it’s okay. I don’t know why I just blurted that out. I haven’t been on a date in over twenty years.”
“Me, either.” The tension lines around her mouth eased. “That’s hysterical. Twenty years. That’s a long time to be out of it. I just don’t date, Evan, I’m sorry.”
“I understand.” He didn’t meet her gaze but turned toward the window where a vigorous snowfall bordered on whiteout conditions. “We’re going to need a snowplow to get home before long if this keeps up. I’d better go while the getting’s good.”
Somehow her feet weren’t taking her up the aisle, like they were supposed to. Maybe it was shock rooting her to the same spot on the floor. Evan Thornton had asked her out? That didn’t seem right. No one had asked her out in all the years since her husband had left. She always figured the reason was simple: Jimmy had always told her she was a simple small-town girl, nothing special, but a hardworking salt-of-the-earth type.
Not exactly the kind of woman men lined up to date and fall in love with, no.
As she caught her reflection in the window glass, she saw a woman whose face was too long, her nose a little too big, with a few too many character lines to be thought of as pretty.
Evan seemed embarrassed as he kept his attention riveted on the storm. The floor let go of her feet, and woodenly she stumbled down the aisle and away to the safety of the kitchen.
Brandilyn swung through the door with a full basin of dirties. She strained as if she were carrying a thousand pounds. With a groan, she unloaded the tub onto the sink counter. “So, Paige, is Mr. Thornton, like, totally cool, well, for an old guy?”
Paige leaned to the side to bring Evan in focus through the order-up window. Yeah, totally cool, to use the teenager’s phrase.
But not “cool” the way Brandilyn probably meant it. Cool, in Paige’s opinion, because he was the kind of man who stayed. He’d been the one to pick up the pieces when his marriage failed. He raised his boys, made them a good home. He’d provided for them and gave them a good head start in the world.
He was a nice man, handsome, strong, capable and with those wide shoulders of his, he could make a woman, even one as jaded as she, wish…just a little in absolutely impossible dreams.
And how foolish was that? “After you run a load of dishes, could you start prepping salads? If this weather keeps up, we’re going to be dead tonight, so if you want to go early, it would be okay.”
“Like, who wants to work?” The girl pitched her voice over the chink and clang of the dishes as she unloaded the bin. “But I really need the hours. Like super bad.”
“Then how do you feel about managing the front tonight?”
“You mean it?” A cup crashed into the top rack as Brandilyn spun around, forgetting what she was doing, excitement lighting her up. “That’d be so sweet! Like, I can do it. I know I can. Well, except for the cash register. But I’m catching on. Really, I am.”
“I know, sweetie. You’re doing great. You get better every week.”
“Ya think so?”
The girl brightened so much, Paige saw all of Brandilyn’s potential. The teenager was so bright, when she applied herself. She only had to figure that out. “I do. Did you get your registration notice from the community college yet?”
“It came and now Bree and I have to figure out what to take. It’s totally weird.”
“Did you want to bring your stuff by and we can go over it?”
“That’d be so awesome.” Brandilyn put all her youthful energy into stacking the dishes into the industrial washer. “So, like, are you gonna go out with him?”
The fryer-basket handle slipped from Paige’s fingers and plunged back into the sizzling hot oil. She jumped back in time to avoid getting burned, but she had the distinct impression she wasn’t going to avoid getting burned in a metaphorical sense. The twins had overheard Evan. How many others had?
As if thinking of him had made him materialize before her eyes, her gaze found him. A six-foot-plus flesh-and-blood man, solid and substantial and everything that could possibly be good in a male human being, and something deep within her sighed at the sight of him standing in the threshold. That sigh was absolutely something she did not want to admit she felt, especially to herself.
“You’re busy.” His molasses-dark gaze roamed over her like a touch. “I’ll just leave this on the counter by the till, okay?”
Her gaze slid to the ticket and the twenty-dollar bill in
his hand. In his big, strong-looking hands that made her wonder what it would be like to feel that hand enclosed over hers. What would it be like to feel his wide palm against hers and his thick, tapered fingers twined through hers. Would she feel safe? Sheltered? Cherished?
There I go again, wishing for fairy tales. What was it about certain men that could affect a woman so foolishly? “I’ll ring that up for you right now.”
It was surprisingly hard to meet his gaze, and the moment their eyes connected he jerked away as if she’d slapped him. “I’ll wait out here then.”
And he was gone, big athletic strides that took him from her sight. That settled it. She had hurt his feelings. That was so far from what she’d intended. The surprise of his proposition still rocked her. Date? Her?
It was preposterous to think of dating at her age anyway. Ridiculous. Who would be interested in a woman with too much responsibility, too much work, and too many people to take care of? And no interests, no time for hobbies, let alone letting a man woo her into believing he loved her.
Hold it, your bitterness is showing. She cast a quick prayer of forgiveness heavenward. It was not easy trying to keep a clear heart in this world where men existed.
Oops, there it was again. In truth, she was a little bitter toward the male gender and although it had significantly faded over the years, as she’d gotten a better handle on it, it had not vanished completely.
She vowed to work harder on it as she caught sight of Evan waiting for her at the front counter.
He looked out the window. Gazed down the aisle. He looked at the award plaques from the local Better Business Bureau on the wall behind her. He looked everywhere but at her.
Lord, I have hurt him. She hadn’t meant to, but what did she do now to fix this? She rang up the sale, counted back his change. But he held up his hand.
“Keep it.” He looked straight ahead as he turned away. “See ya.”
“Have a good day, Evan.”
She watched the door swing shut, and she felt horrible. She’d been so stunned and confused she hadn’t handled the situation right. She hated it when she made a mistake that hurt someone else, and she’d bungled this one but good.
This wasn’t about the fact that Evan was a good customer. This was personal. She thought he was okay, for a man. Probably one of the most responsible men she knew, and responsibility was something she thought was a virtue in a man. He didn’t deserve her rather cool response to him. He didn’t deserve that kind of treatment at all.
And what if this stopped him from attending the Bible study? What if he’d been asking her so he wouldn’t be going into a social situation alone, without a friendly face, and she’d blown that for him, too?
I have to fix this. I have to make this right. Somehow, someway, she vowed, telling herself it was her conscience that was troubling her.
And not her heart.
Chapter Six
Evan shoveled the foot-high accumulation of wet, sloppy snow off his front walkway and grimaced as his back spasmed in protest. He’d leave the stuff to melt on its own, except that the local station had broken in to the baseball-game coverage to announce freezing temps and more snow expected overnight.
Yippee. He loved Montana weather…not, as Cal would say. With any luck, spring would return in full force soon and he could start planning that trip up into the foothills.
Until then, it looked as if he would spend the rest of the weekend snowed in.
Good thing I stopped by the grocery store on the way home. It looked like he might be snowed in for a day or two.
As he slipped the edge of the shovel under the block of snow and heaved, humiliation rushed over him like the bite of the north wind. He’d needed something to do after leaving the diner. He’d called Phil on his cell to say he was going without explaining why he hadn’t waited. He felt bad about that, but he’d fill him in the next time they were face to face.
What he felt even worse about was how he’d come on to Paige McKaslin like a teenager asking for his first date.
It wasn’t just his inexperience with these matters. No, that wasn’t what was eating him up inside. It was worse than that. It was that he hadn’t even given it any forethought. Any planning. The question had just rolled impulsively off his tongue—and he didn’t date! He didn’t want to date. He planned on never dating again.
And, of course, the worst part of all was that she’d turned him down flat.
What was it she’d said? That’s hysterical had been her exact words, and she’d looked as if she were trying not to laugh. She didn’t date; okay, he could live with that. But he knew it wasn’t the truth.
Why on earth didn’t Paige date? She was a gorgeous, hardworking, together woman. Come to think of it, it was strange she’d never remarried. He knew the rumor was that her husband had had enough of her and run off, but that was gossip he’d accidentally overheard around town years ago and he didn’t believe it.
Not anymore, he figured, remembering the vulnerable woman he’d gotten to know last night
Unfortunately, that same Paige McKaslin didn’t seem to be available when he’d asked her out. The professional, every-hair-in-place businesswoman had shown up to say no.
He didn’t feel put down or even put out. But his chest was knotted up so tight and he couldn’t explain it. See why he’d given up dealing with women long ago? See the kind of tangled mess they tied a reasonable man up in?
He didn’t want to admit that regret was building up in him like the snow on the ground. Cold, and growing colder, he gave the contents of the shovel a good toss—and his back snapped, lightning-fast pain searing down his back and into his left leg.
That can’t be good. He didn’t dare move. Not at first. The pain was too searing. He took a few quick breaths and tried moving the leg that wasn’t wracked with knifing pain. It made a fresh wave of agony explode in the small of his back. Great. What a treat to be forty-two.
Then, suddenly, through the veil of snow, came two golden beams of light. At first he thought it was Blake’s Jeep roaring up the snow-laden driveway, but then he noticed it wasn’t a black vehicle, but a dark-green new model. It wasn’t Phil; he drove a van, and Cal had that undependable sports car—
The light blinded him for a split second and then the SUV turned the last curve and slid to a graceful stop in the driveway. The porch lights shone on the window so he couldn’t see whom was behind the wheel until the vehicle’s door swung open, turning on the dome light.
And he saw Paige McKaslin emerging into the storm, dressed in a dark-green parka and brown hat, mittens and scarf. It was all he noticed because humiliation was starting to drag him down.
What on earth is she doing here? He lowered the shovel with great effort. Even moving his arms made his back spasm even more. Wind battered him. Falling snow pummeled him. But neither was as hard to endure as the woman’s agile progress along the freshly shoveled pathway.
“Evan! I hope you don’t mind I dropped by. I tried calling. I looked your number up before I left the diner, but there was no answer.”
Be strong. Stoic. Cool. Although how he was going to do that and act as if he wasn’t in agony remained a mystery. “I’ve been out shoveling the walk. About this time, I miss the boys. They were handy for chores like this.”
“And I bet it was much easier on your back when they did the shoveling.”
“Now, why would you say that? There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m a man in the prime of my life. A little shoveling is nothing to me.”
“Is that right? Then why do you look as if you’re frozen in one position?”
“I’m a little cold, is all.”
“And the grimace on your face is from seeing me?”
“Uh, not so much. I think my back went out. I have a bad disk.”
“I thought I recognized that particular look of torture. Can you move?” Paige shifted the heavy sack she carried to her other arm and tracked up the icy concrete walkway. “Do you need help?”
>
“My pride has taken a serious blow today, but I think I’ll live.”
Paige tried not to be affected by the sight of him. With all his wide capable strength, he didn’t appear decrepit. He somehow seemed even more masculine and powerful as he lowered the shovel to the ground and leaned on it like a cane. “What brings you by?”
“I owe you an apology.” She lifted the sack, concentrating on it because she didn’t want to look at him in case dislike for her showed on his face. “You surprised me so much, Evan, I just didn’t realize what I was saying. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He looked like a pillar of steel. Strong. Unyielding. Unfeeling.
She’d never felt so awkward in her life. Maybe she’d been wrong. Maybe he’d hardly cared that she’d said no. So how foolish was it that she was standing here, fixing something that wasn’t broken and now making everything worse?
She’d never been in this situation before. Her teenage years had not been average. She’d never dated; she had the responsibilities of her younger brother and sisters. She had grownup problems and no time to date. It wasn’t until Jimmy had started working at the diner that she’d had her first real taste of romance. Felt the first flutter of joy at seeing that special man’s face, hearing his voice, spending time just talking and getting to know him. Experienced the first wishes for sweet kisses and holding hands and hopes for a happy marriage.
Look how that turned out. She’d been so wrong then. She was probably just as wrong now. “At least let me leave this with you.”
“That looks like a meal from the diner.”
“It’s more than that. It’s not only a peace offering, but also a chicken dinner of appreciation. You keep insisting on paying for your meals instead of letting me give you a meal in thanks, so I’m bringing supper to you. Did you think I was a pushover? That I was a woman who gave up easily?”