“Willa told me about it. She and Serena go way back. I think she may have been the one to convince her to move here.” I unfold my napkin. “I figured it was worth trying.”
We order fast. No pleasantries. I pick the salmon, which feels reckless for a Tuesday, while Rhett goes for a rare steak. He asks for a beer, and I order a Chardonnay to soothe my nerves.
The silence is sturdy between us.
“Your flyer’s good,” he says. “Saw it at the feed store.” He’s trying for chatty, but I can see through. I want to touch his hand on the table, just gently, from the wrist up, but I keep my arms folded.
“Sela did it for me,” I say. “I can’t design worth shit.”
He softens, barely. “Still good.”
I look at him, really look. The tan lines, the quick smile he tries to bite back whenever I say something honest, the big hands fidgeting with the salt shaker. He’s so damn solid–so much more masculine than the men I meet in Denver. It’s strange, I never noticed it before. Or maybe I did and pushed it to the back of my mind the way I do everything else concerning Rhett Calder.
“Have you picked anyone?” he asks.
“For what?”
He fiddles with the salt again. “To, you know, test drive the marketing.”
“I’m vetting candidates.” It’s only half a lie.
He considers me. “You take your time with things, don’t you?”
“Only with the important ones.”
He lets that hang. The food comes. It feels too soon, but I go through the motions: slice the salmon, ask after the cows, nod at the weather talk, check my phone once. I keep my face neutral and my answers lighter than air. It’s how you survive here: let yourself hover, never put down roots too deep for the first frost to kill them off.
Toward the end, Rhett leans forward. His voice drops. “I don’t want to be in your lineup.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
His eyes are clear, calm. “I’m saying I don’t want another coffee date. I don’t want to be your test run. Or your project.” He pauses, and his jaw flexes like he’s weighing whether to finish. “I want you to stop making this a job. Just… pick me, and we can be your example of Cowboy Cupid’s success rate.”
It’s not a question, and it’s not a dare, either. Just a fact, placed gently on the table.
Nothing in my chest moves. I look down at my lap, then at the plates, then at him. My brain is quiet for once.
“That’s not how it works,” I say, but my voice is thinner now.
He shrugs. “You tell me how it works, then.”
“I’m not—” I start, but my mouth is dry. “I’m not relationship material.” It sounds weak as soon as I say it, so I force myself to look up and meet his eyes. “I’m barely good at people, period. I fix other people’s connections because it’s easier than fixing my own.”
Rhett nods, slowly. “You don’t need fixing, Hannah.”
The air is thick with it, the wanting. I stand up. I have to move, to breathe, or I’ll say yes and regret it later. “I need a minute,” I say, and slip out the front, into the half-dark of the parking lot.
It’s cooler outside. I walk once around the lot and circle back. I rest my palms against the cool painted brick and close my eyes. There is nothing left of my practiced confidence, just hope and a big hollow space where the fear used to be.
He’s waiting just inside the door when I come back. His eyes are steady, like he’d know how to find me in a blackout.
I don’t sit down. “I don’t do messy,” I tell him. “I don’t do drama, and I don’t want to be in a small-town saga.”
Rhett steps over, close enough that I can smell the lemon ice in his drink. “Nobody wants the drama,” he says. “But if you think I’d let you go without a fight, you’ve got the wrong read on me.”
I laugh, not because it’s funny, but because it’s true. “So what happens now?” I ask.
His hand finds the small of my back before I realize he’s moving. The dip is unhurried—one arm solid as a fence post—and then his mouth is on mine, slow and certain, the kind of kiss that doesn’t ask permission because it already knows the answer. His thumb presses into the curve of my waist. I feel it everywhere. When he rights me, my heels find the floor a half-second late, and I have to grip his sleeve to stay in them.
