Page 46 of In a Word, Yes

Again, I reach into the bag. “Not even this salmon?”

“Fancy Feast Seafood Pâté or nothing.”

Crouching, I scratch Louie behind the ears. “Poor wittle guy, lapping up all those filler ingredients.” Again, Louie snaps at my hand. This time I yank it to safety.

“Bad kitty!” Ian scolds.

Straightening, I sigh, then produce one last can. “I grabbed one, just in case.”

“Ah! You’re the best!”

Ian’s puppy eyes linger on mine. “Hey, Lucy, would you ... I mean, would you maybe want to—”

Oh, dear God.Please don’t let Ian be making a sudden, 180-degree swerve out of the friend zone! I bite the inside corner of my mouth, my eyes pleading with him not to. Fortunately, the door jingles, and in slips Bernard, greeting us with a silent tip of his cap. Seconds later, not-so-sunny Sunny follows. Today she wears a knit hat over her weightless white hair.

Their arrival only appears to add urgency to Ian’s mission.

“Would you like to grab a coffee with me sometime?”

“Coffee?” I say, stalling.

“Or ... tea?”

Raising my plastic cup with its last inch of tea, I swirl the ice noisily. “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” I can tell I’m wearing a stupidly perky grin. Much as I’d like to soften it, I seem to have zero control over my facial muscles.

“Or, I don’t know. Pie?” Ian’s tone turns soft. He steeples his hands. “Lucy, listen. I’m only thinking it would be nice to drink our beverages someplace else for a change. You know,together.Louie is great, but occasionally I wouldn’t mind some human company. I mean, for the beverage drinking.”

“Hmm. I take it Louie’s not drinking coffee these days.” Hokey jibber-jabber. My new specialty.

“Not so much.”

“So then he’s a decaf-feline? Or is it a noncaf-feline?”

I’m guessing by Ian’s blank expression he isn’t into dorky dames wielding ridiculous puns. See, if Iwerelooking for a romantic partner till death do us part, this could be a deal-breaker.

“Louie adores you,” I say, still buying time. I need a few more moments to wave my trusty danger-detector over the proposition before me. A warning buzzer sounds in my brain. I’m getting a reading. It isn’t deafening, but it’s detectable. What if something were to go haywire in my friendship with Ian? I’d lose myplace. My Sweet Reads. My visits to Savannah. I’d lose Louie! I palm my stomach to quell the butterflies.

“More likely, he thinks I’m a sorry excuse for a cat,” Ian says. “It’s pure pity.”

Ian isn’t wrong. Companyisgood. Clearly, company—of the grownup kind, anyway—is missing from my life. My gaze travels down Birch in the general direction of the Trading Post Café. Sweet Reads offers a daily pour-over brew, but easily 90 percent of the hard-core coffee drinking in town goes on at the Trading Post.

“So...” I say slowly, “you want to cross the street and drink coffee. With or without pie.”

Ian shrugs. “That’s pretty much the gist. I hear that other people do these things quite regularly.”

I laugh a little.

He takes a step backward. “Forget I even brought it up. No worries.”

Let’s face it, Ian’s a great guy—this is widely agreed upon. In fact, a contingency of smart-alecky locals, disenchanted with their options in the last presidential election, cast write-in votes for this man. If the upcoming November ballot added a call toelect Charity Falls’ Most Eligible Bachelor, Ian Witherspoon would win by a landslide. In ancient Yiddish times, the town yenta wouldn’t waste a second before pairing me up with Ian.

Thing is, if I’m only allowed one hard no for the rest of my life, it’s to being paired up.

Still, winsomeness is a hard quality to come by, and Ian is nothing if not winsome. Not to mention he has access to more books than I could read in ten lifetimes.

And then there’s the fact that I haven’t said yes to anything new today.

Not to mention, Ian’s pretty cute when he blushes. Ohhh, what’s the harm?