“Whatever it is, he should bottle it,” she murmured, walking out of the bathroom. She flashed him a smile. “I’m ready.”
The warmth in his smile signaled he liked what he saw.
Cori still wore the outfit she had on earlier and settled for a quick freshening up. That impressed him. As if she needed anything more to enhance her beauty. He would have told her that, but he was afraid she’d think his words were corny. They sure as hell sounded corny to him.
“Is something wrong?” she probed, confused by his silence.
He shook his head. “No, I’m just thinking that you’re sprucing up this old town.” He walked to the front door and opened it for her, waiting until she passed by him. Ben inhaled the springtime fragrance that wafted after her and instantly thought back to that kiss. And wondered if there was a chance they could repeat it.
“I would think after the day you spent at the clinic, you’d be too exhausted to go anywhere,” Cori commented as they walked toward Myrna’s.
He should have been, but oddly, since seeing Cori, he found his energy renewed. He just wasn’t sure that was something to tell her.
“Today wasn’t so bad,” he admitted, hiding his grin as he noticed the interested glances directed their way from shopkeepers as they passed various town businesses. If it hadn’t been close to the dinner hour, he was certain there would have been more people around to watch their progress down to the restaurant.
The same interest Vivian was showing as she stood just inside her dress shop at the display window. Then there was Homer, pretending to be changing the display in his hardware store window, except he hadn’t changed the display in the past ten years. He figured plumbing supplies, particularly a toilet, would sell year-round.
“Compared to what?”
He didn’t have to think about it. “Compared to Saturday night when there’s a full moon out and every lunatic in the city is bleeding in the middle of the ER.”
Cori wrinkled her nose. “Sounds like something you’d see on TV.”
“Unfortunately, TV doesn’t prepare one for what goes on in real life.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” she asked.
Her question went unanswered as Ben opened the door to Myrna’s and ushered her inside. He waved to Ralph and guided Cori toward one of the rear booths.
“Evenin’, Doc.” A waitress Cori hadn’t seen before walked up to them. The woman smiled at Cori. “That was a really nice thing you did for Thalia. She hasn’t had it easy since her mom died last year, and Rawley’s been the only bright spot in her life. I heard that he took one look at her and about proposed right then.”
Cori shifted uncomfortably under the woman’s praise. “I just wanted to make things better.”
“Well, honey, you did a lot more than make things better.” She turned to Ben. “I suppose you know Kevin figures you patched him up so well the last time there’s no reason why he can’t go out joyriding every weekend.”
“Then tell him the next time he rolls that car of his over, I’ll let Ella patch him up,” Ben advised with a grin. “Cori, this lady who never stops talking is Charlotte, Ralph’s wife. And if you think I like to feed people, you wait until she gets going.”
“You’re looking for trouble saying things like that, Benjamin Cooper!” She planted one hand on her hip while the other slapped his shoulder so hard he would have pitched forward if he hadn’t braced himself. She suddenly turned to Cori. “Of course, darlin’, you do look a bit peaked—” her voice lowered “—and in your condition you need your vitamins. And I don’t mean that crap they call vitamin pills, either. Ralph!” Her voice boomed as she turned toward the kitchen. “How about ladling up some of your vegetable beef soup for Cori?”
“You so busy flirtin’ with the doc you can’t do it yourself?” the cook growled.
Charlotte sighed. “The man can’t get along without me,” she confided before ambling off to the kitchen.
Cori looked back to Ben. Her eyes were navy blue saucers.
“And I thought it was bad the first time I was here,” she whispered. “She really isn’t bringing over vegetable beef soup, is she?” He nodded. “I hate vegetable beef soup.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll eat it or she’ll want to know why and you can’t tell her it’s because you don’t like that kind of soup. She considers anything her husband makes a work of culinary art.”
“Ben, darlin’, you want the chili tonight, don’t you?” Charlotte called out.
“You got it, and something cold with it,” he called back.
“And Cori, darlin’, after you finish your soup, I’ll bring out the meat loaf platter. You need some meat on your bones. A glass of milk, too.”
“I hate milk!” she whispered fiercely.
Ben couldn’t stop grinning. A panicky Cori was a treat to watch. “Too bad, because Charlotte will make sure you drink every drop.”
“Here you go.” Charlotte set a bowl in front of Cori. She turned to Ben, saying, “I’ll bring your chili with her meat loaf.” She returned a moment later with a large glass of Coke for Ben and Cori’s glass of milk.
Ben reached across the table and swiped a packet of crackers.
Cori dipped her spoon into the soup and tentatively tasted it. “It’s good.”
“Told you.”
She took several more spoonfuls. “So I assume the whole town knows about me and my ‘condition’?”
Ben shrugged. “There may be one or two people who haven’t heard yet,” he deadpanned.
“How can you live in a town where there’s no privacy?”
“Very carefully.” He quickly raised his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I’ll be serious here. As a kid you hate it. If you accidentally break Mr. Walters’s window, your mom will know about it within five minutes. You can’t skip school because the school nurse is best friends with your mom and wouldn’t think twice about calling home to see how sick you are. If you borrow the car for a midnight drive, your dad will find out from one of his poker buddies who’s coming home from a lodge meeting.”
“It sounds stifling but wonderful at the same time,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose as she sipped her milk.
“Spring,” he said suddenly.
Cori blinked in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“Spring.” He grinned sheepishly. “Your voice. It’s light and almost airy and your perfume has the smell of spring to it, so I figured out your voice has the sound of spring, as well.”
Cori’s laughter rippled out like gentle waves on a pond. “Well, that’s a new one.”
“You mean, spoken like a hick,” Ben said wryly.
She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “No, I think it’s lovely because you mean what you say. I’ve had my share of compliments, but they were never spoken as sincerely as yours. It makes a big difference.”
Ben’s eyes blazed with dark gold lights. “I can’t imagine anyone giving you a line.”
“No? Think about the popularity of blond jokes. When you’re blond, pretty and have an eclectic educational background, you expect to hear every manner of lines,” she said without any malice toward the opposite sex. “Sincere ones without a hidden meaning are very rare and need to be cherished.”
“Is that what Rufus did—hand you a line you thought was sincere and turned out not to be?”
Cori suddenly exhibited a great deal of interest in her milk. “Is it true I’ll have to drink gallons of this for the next seven months?”
“You’re not answering my question, Cori.”
“No, I’m just ignoring it.” She took a deep breath, picked up her glass and drank two-thirds of the contents.
“Good girl,” Charlotte approved, snatching up the glass for a refill. “I’ll be bringing along your meat loaf.”
Cori stared at the refilled glass with dismay. She glared at Ben whose lips were twitching with restrained mirth. “It’s not funny.”
“You ought to be flattered.
Charl doesn’t take just anyone under her wing,” he replied.
“Don’t you scare her with those untrue stories about me,” the waitress scolded, setting laden plates in front of both of them. She turned to Cori. “Obviously, you’re going to need a job after what happened over at Regina’s. Sophie, my morning waitress, is moving since her husband got a job in Kansas City. Show up here at six and wear somethin’ cheerful.” With that, she bustled off.
“Another job I can screw up,” Cori muttered, stunned by the woman’s offer.
“Maybe not. Maybe you’re made to be a waitress.”
“I don’t know what I’m made to be. I have one semester in business administration, another in psychology, another in fine arts.” Cori stared at the biggest slice of meat loaf with gravy she’d ever seen, a creamy mound of mashed potatoes dotted with pure butter and a healthy pile of green beans off to one side. “Not to mention two years in a Swiss finishing school my father thought would be a good idea.”
“Finishing school. I’m impressed.”
She giggled. “Don’t be. I was expelled for sneaking out after-hours. I was going through my rebellious phase then.”
Ben shook his head. “Has there ever been a time you haven’t been rebellious?” He scooped his spoon through the thick chili.
Cori thought about it. “Not since I entered puberty.” She found her meat loaf tasty and one bite quickly led to another. She swallowed before continuing. “Please don’t get me wrong. My father is a wonderful man and I love him dearly, but he has this thing about control. Perhaps things would have been better if my mother had lived. During my psychology phase I came up with the theory that he was protecting me. He felt I had two chances in this world—I could either marry someone who would take care of me or I could learn to deal in his world. That meant I needed a heavy-duty business education. But it was soon apparent business administration wasn’t a strong point for me, so my father viewed marriage as my only option. Since then, he’s brought around a large number of eligible men who he felt would be appropriate for the Peyton empire.” She tried the mashed potatoes next. She couldn’t remember ever eating anything so good. “It didn’t seem to matter to him that there might not be any sparks between us.”
“Was one of them Rufus?” Ben shook his head in wonder. “You know, I’m sorry, but Rufus sounds more like a dog’s name than a man’s.”
She chuckled. “That’s what my father said, and, no, Rufus was very definitely not on his approved list.”
“So you decided Rufus was a good way to rebel?”
Cori shifted uncomfortably. “I really don’t like discussing Rufus.”
Ben leaned across the table slightly. “You could go to bed with the guy, but you can’t discuss him?”
Immediately, Cori felt herself blush. “It was one time and I regretted it instantly,” she whispered heatedly. “I thought because he was an artist and had a sensitive nature, he was what I needed in my life. When I realized he figured my money—or rather my father’s money—would finance his artistic endeavors, I knew I had been duped and I let him know I didn’t like it.”
“Is that when you decided buying an English country manor and turning it into an inn was better?”
She nodded. Barely a third of the food had been eaten and she already felt full. She set her fork down. “It was a wonderful opportunity.”
“Which is why you’re stuck in Farrington, Kansas.”
Cori looked at Ben and felt that falling-in-space sensation in the pit of her stomach again. “Maybe I was supposed to end up here,” she murmured. She was right. The man had major bedroom eyes. The more she looked at his eyes, the more she thought about bedrooms. The more she thought about bedrooms, the more she envisioned Ben naked. Quickly, she grabbed her glass, almost spilling the milk she drank to soothe her dry throat. “Maybe fate stepped in and decided I was meant to come here instead of going there. I’ve never been one to argue with fate.”
Ben started to say something, then realized where they were. He looked up to find most of the tables in the restaurant filled and the occupants watching them without any pretense. “This is one of those times I hate the lack of privacy.”
Cori was a little more subtle in checking out their surroundings. Jess smiled openly at her. Elliott scowled at her and Regina eyed her with distrust. One elderly man she remembered as part of her entourage at the garage was seated with a silver-haired woman. He nodded and smiled.
“The way they look at me you’d think your town doesn’t get very many visitors,” she commented.
He shook his head. “More departures than arrivals. We’re not exactly a town booming with prosperity.”
“Why?”
“We’re off the main highway and we have nothing that would bring in the tourists. And that means we’re slowly dying. I was one of them that tried to escape. I hadn’t intended to return after I got my residency.”
“What did you do?”
“I worked as a trauma surgeon in a Chicago ER,” he answered, sadly examining his now-empty chili bowl. He looked up with a hopeful grin. “Char, think I can have seconds?”
She was there to retrieve his bowl. “You mean Ralph’s chili hasn’t burned your stomach to a cinder yet?” she teased before turning her laser gaze on Cori. “Darlin’, you’ve barely touched your dinner. Eat before it gets cold.” She rushed off, filled Ben’s bowl and slid it in front of him before bustling off as her name was called.
“I’ve eaten more in the past three days than I’ve eaten in a week,” Cori confided in Ben.
“No wonder you kept passing out. You can’t do that anymore, Cori,” he said sternly. “You have more to think about than keeping yourself so thin a good stiff breeze could blow you away.”
“That must be the doctor speaking, and since I didn’t think the doctor was the one who asked me to dinner, I do believe I’ll ignore that statement.” She used her fork to cut another bite of meat loaf. “And he isn’t to worry, since I would never do anything to harm a child. And I do not skip meals to stay thin.”
Ben smiled. “So this is a dinner date. Are you sure you can handle that?”
Cori thought of Regina’s statement that Valerie was after Ben. What if Ben had kept one secret from the townspeople—Valerie?
“I wouldn’t call this a dinner date. Just two people who happen to be sharing the same table.”
Ben shook his head. “No, I think I’d prefer to call this a dinner date. Makes it more official.”
Date. A date meant going out with someone of the opposite sex. A date meant his taking her home afterward. And kissing her. And if she were lucky…
Cori resisted the urge to shake her head in rapid denial. How could she even think about a man in that sense? After all, she had just found out she was pregnant and he wasn’t the father.
“Just two people having dinner together,” she maintained.
Ben’s knowing smile easily undid her formal manner.
“Most couples have dinner and then…” He left it at that, giving Cori a pretty good idea what his idea of “and then” was.
“I can’t imagine ‘and then’ happens all that much in Farrington. Not unless the couple wants the story printed in the paper the next day,” she smoothly countered.
He wasn’t the least bit offended. “See, and you thought you didn’t know anything about small towns.”
After that, by unspoken agreement, they kept the conversation casual, light and entertaining for their avid audience.
“I can’t believe we weren’t thrown out.” Cori giggled when they stood outside the restaurant. As they had left, Charlotte had reminded Cori what time to show up for work, then shot Ben a knowing look as if she figured out what he was doing.
“I can’t believe you went along with it.” Ben reached down for her hand, threading his fingers through hers.
“Discussing your favorite memories of dissecting Harold, your cadaver, had seemed a bit strong, although I notice no one else seemed to mind.” S
he shook her head, amazed she had actively participated in a discussion centered on dissections. For someone who had been throwing up off and on lately, her stomach had stood up admirably during Ben’s reminiscences. She wondered if the meat loaf had anything to do with it. “From now on I’ll never be able to look at liver in quite the same way.”
“I had classmates who turned into strict vegetarians because of that class,” he recalled. “I figured once I’d eaten a hamburger I would be fine.”
Cori wrinkled her nose. “Not exactly a lovely method.”
“Maybe not, but a workable one. I went into the greasiest dive you ever saw. The hamburgers didn’t even look like something that came from a cow.” He smiled at the memory. “I even thought about taking some of their special sauce back with me. I thought it would make a great chemistry experiment.”
“And?”
“I’m sure I barely escaped food poisoning, and figured if I could survive that, anything was possible.”
Just as Ben expected, Cori laughed at his joke. The walk back to the cottage seemed even shorter than usual. He wondered what his mother would think of her. His mother was away visiting one of his sisters, but he knew that wouldn’t stop the town’s grapevine from letting her know everything that went on. In fact, he was surprised she hadn’t called him yet for his version of the new girl in town.
He stopped short as he realized they had reached the cottage door. And chuckled as Cori dug in her pocket and pulled out the keys.
“I know, I know. No one out here locks their doors. But I’m from L.A. Out there, if we don’t lock our doors we would come back to nothing. Including, probably, the front door.” She showed surprise when he took the keys from her hand and inserted the proper one in the lock.
“Life here isn’t always perfect,” he countered, pushing the door open.
Cori stepped inside. “Somehow, I can’t imagine this town having a major crime spree.” She fidgeted under his amused gaze. “Would you like some coffee?” Her eyes briefly registered alarm at the expression on his face. “Oh, please don’t tell me I have to give up my coffee! I can’t live without coffee! No offense, but it’s bad enough you don’t have a coffee store in town. I used to pick up these wonderful beans flavored with French vanilla. They were the perfect way to start the day.”
Mommy Heiress (Accidental Dads #2) Page 7