Page 23 of Bailey

“Ah, so that’s what you meant by up north,” she said.

“Yeah. You said you lived up there, too.”

“Butte,” Bailey said. “I built my first veterinary clinic in Butte.”

She looked out her side window, wanting this conversation to take a different turn onto a different topic. Reeves said he hadn’t dated in a while, but he could certainly read body language, and Bailey hoped he’d pick up on hers.

“Did you move back here because your family is here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I grew up here in Coral Canyon.” She glanced over to him. “I fell in love with Montana when I went there for college.”

He nodded. “It’s a beautiful state.”

Thankfully, he asked her easy questions about her siblings and her clinic, and before she knew it, he pulled up to a cute white wooden building with a rusty metal sign that said Spoons and Spurs. He came to get her door and tucked her hand in his before he opened the door for her, and they walked into the restaurant.

Much to her relief several of the tables held people, and it smelled like good brown gravy and freshly baked bread.

A woman wearing a red dress with a white apron tied around her waist said, “Y’all can pick anywhere you want to sit, and I’ll be right there,” just before she delivered four plates of food to two couples sitting at a table against the wall on her left.

Reeves paused and looked around, then led Bailey over to a table for two against the opposite wall. He pulled out the chair for her, and she sat down. To her surprise, he didn’t take the chair across from her, but pulled it around the table and sat kitty-corner from her, his back to the restaurant and the door. In fact, the only person he could see was her, and the same was true for everyone else in the restaurant.

She smiled at him and covered his hand with hers. “You don’t want anyone to see you, do you?”

He shook his head and kept his hat tilted low as the waitress arrived with two paper menus.

“Howdy, folks,” she said. “Can I get you something to drink tonight?”

“Can you make me a Shirley Temple?” Bailey asked.

“Sure can. What about you, cowboy?”

“I’ll take a Diet Coke,” he said. “And you can put some of the cherry in that too, please.” He picked up the paper menus and handed one to Bailey.

“Coming up,” the waitress said, and she pointed one blood-red fingernail at the menu. “We have chicken-fried venison tonight as one of our specials, and we’re all out of our fried potato cakes. Other than that, everything we’ve got is on the menu.”

Bailey flashed a smile at her and said, “Thanks.”

She left, and Bailey looked down at the all-American diner menu. “Oh, they serve breakfast all day,” she said.

“Is that a positive for you?” Reeves asked.

“Yes,” Bailey said. “I don’t make breakfast for myself very often, because I’m always rushing out the door, but I love breakfast foods in general.”

“Noted,” he said, and Bailey had the distinct feeling that he’d noted everything she’d told him, stemming way back to when he’d found her passed out in her driveway in a snowstorm.

She really liked him, and the easy, quiet way he had about him reminded her so much of Bryce. Reeves was a muted version of the boy she had fallen in love with as a young college student. While she feigned studying the menu, Bailey’s thoughts blitzed through her mind, telling her that if she and Reeves were really going to have a serious romantic relationship, she’d have to tell him everything. She hadn’t had to fully do that with a friend or a partner in the past fifteen years since she’d given birth to her son and then given him up for adoption.

She stole a glance at Reeves, and he too lifted his eyes to meet hers. “What is it?” he asked.

Bailey found her throat full of nerves and unspoken words she’d never said before. She certainly couldn’t say them now, so she forced a smile to her face and shook her head.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m just thinking of trying the chicken-fried venison. What do you think about that?”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Reeves didn’t believe for a single second that Bailey had been thinking about the chicken-fried venison, not when she looked at him with her eyes wide and full of vulnerability like that. He reminded himself that he still had plenty of things to disclose to her too, and none of them he wanted to reveal on the first date. No, this had to be full of wildflowers and sunshine and unicorns, so he could get a second date—where he could hopefully reveal more at that time.