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I’m all business, very professional.
“We can go on my lunch break. I can give you all the time you need.”
Hope and happiness wrap themselves around me like a warm hug. This might actually happen. I might actually sell him a house and Helen will have to take me off probation. I could cry, but I manage to keep it together.
I hold my hand out, and he wraps it up in his tight grip. We shake and shake, holding each other’s eye contact until I finally cave and crack a smile.
“That was pretty bold of you to march over like that,” he says.
“It felt like an out-of-body experience,” I admit.
He smiles wider, still shaking my hand.
“You know you didn’t have to feed me that whole line the other day about you ‘not being ready to date’—you clearly have no problem hanging out with Tori.”
His grip tightens ever so slightly around my hand. “It wasn’t a line. Daisy invited her to tag along, nothing more to it.”
I already know this, but I’m having an insecure, weird moment and I wanted him to corroborate Daisy’s story. It feels disturbingly good to hear he didn’t invite Tori himself—so good that I can’t help but push the conversation one step forward.
“Yeah, well, have you fed her the line about not wanting to date yet?”
We shake and shake and shake.
“There’s no reason to tell her that. She’s not someone I’m interested in.”
“Oh, but you told me?” I quip.
Something flashes in his green eyes just as the significance of my statement settles over us. He doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t let go of my hand. It’s the strangest, most charged exchange I’ve had in years. It’s just a handshake, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months I look down and have a big ol’ baby bump.
“Adam?”
“Hmm?”
“I should get back to singles night,” I say, my voice weak and useless.
“Right.”
“You can let go of my hand now.”
He doesn’t. “Are you going to go home with that guy in your bowling group?”
“Why do you care? Worried some big cowboy is going to have his way with me in a barn full of hay?”
He finally releases my hand and steps back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”CHAPTER THIRTEENADAMMy morning at the clinic is spent with three dogs, two cats, and a wily parrot. My patients demand my attention, but I still manage to carve out a little bit of space in my head to delve into my weird feelings for Madeleine. I came to Hamilton with no intention of digging in and growing roots. For the last eight years, I’ve had nothing but roots. I need time to myself, to adjust to a life that isn’t shared with Olivia. We only broke up a few months ago—isn’t there some kind of rule for this? If we were together for eight years, shouldn’t it take me at least eight months to move on? So then why does it already feel like Olivia is a distant memory?
Even the pain I endured through the breakup seems to have faded away.
It’s Texas.
I swear the humidity sucks the feeling right out of you. Who can stand to hold a grudge when it’s already hitting above 90 in the early afternoon? They say crime rates go down in the summer because no one can endure the endless heat. Maybe my anger with Olivia can’t endure it either.
Or maybe it’s just Madeleine.
The woman has an uncanny ability to pop up when I least expect her. Hamilton is small, but not that small, yet Madeleine is everywhere—and somehow, it’s not enough. I accepted the invitation to go bowling with Lucas yesterday because I thought Madeleine would be there. She’s his sister, and she’s Daisy’s best friend. It would make sense for them to invite her, but then they surprised me with Tori and I had to make the best of the situation.
I bowled for shit, too busy trying to steal glances of Madeleine and the cowboy one lane over. I knew about cowboy boots, but I thought pearl snaps were just another hacky Texas stereotype. I’m surprised he didn’t light a campfire in the middle of the bowling alley and pull out a harmonica.
I’m checking out my last patient before lunch—an old, docile golden retriever. Maybe if he were a bit more rambunctious as I listen to his heart and lungs, I wouldn’t be wondering why Madeleine was at a singles night in the first place. She’s beautiful and funny, there’s no getting around it, and I doubt there’s a man in this town who would deny it—so why is she trying to find dates at a bowling alley?
I bring it up to Sasha, the receptionist, and try to act casual about it.
“Oh, Madeleine Thatcher? Yeah, I know her. She was one grade below me in school.”
I’m reminded how small this town is.
