Page 83 of Never Your Valentine

“No.”

“Traffic’s terrible.”

“Can’t be worse than the four-way stop at Elk and Conner.”

“True. I got stuck there for ten minutes once.”

Annabelle gestures like she’s a driver, signaling another car. “You go. No, you go.”

We laugh. She puts her hands in her pockets. I lean on my shovel handle. “Do you need a ride to the airport on Tuesday?”

“Lia’s taking me. She’s got a meeting up there. Some legal conference.”

“You know she made that up as an excuse, so you’ll let her drive you.”

“I know.”

I scoop another shovelful of snow and fling it toward the growing pile at the edge of the lot. I wonder if I should just give up since it will all melt in a few weeks anyway. “I owe you dinner,” I say.

“That’s true. You said that if Truly Penrose liked the card, you’d take me somewhere with white linens and a wine list that requires a minor in French.”

“Le Pont Bleu,” I say. “St. Ignace. Saturday.”

“You mean it?”

“I want to remind you what we’ve got here.”

There it is. Not a confession. Not a plea. Just a nudge. If she’s going to decide between this place and somewhere with palm trees, I want her to remember that the Upper Peninsula is livable because we choose to live here, and we keep choosing it.

She smiles. “Okay. Saturday.”

I don’t believe in love, but I believe in Saturday night. I believe in one candlelit dinner with a woman who sells happiness in five-by-seven rectangles.

I’m not a man who chases, but I can be a man who plans. A man who charms. A man who is reliable, steady, and supportive.

A man who tries.

Chapter 33

Annabelle

I’ve never been to France, so I don’t know if Le Pont Bleu is authentically French. But it looks like Paris to me, with gray-green walls, art that looks like old Europe, and votive candles shimmering on small round tables. It smells like butter and expensive wine.

Outside, the evening is slate gray. The Mackinac Bridge glimmers in the distance, knitting the two halves of the state together. In here, it’s soft light and jazz in the background and the kind of fancy that makes me glad I wore my nicest blouse and skirt with my prettiest heels.

Grant’s in a suit that feels like a betrayal. Like he’s been hiding a secret weapon under flannel shirts this entire time. He looks like a man who belongs in boardrooms and on magazine covers and starring in every fantasy I pretend I don’t have. Not that he wasn’t handsome before, but this is downright unfair.

The hostess takes our coats, then leads us to the table by the window. Grant pulls out my chair for me with an old-fashioned flourish. “Being a gentleman, are we?” I ask.

“It’s this place,” he says. “Makes me feel like I should.”

“You absolutely should,” I say. “And the flowers were a nice touch too.” He brought me a bouquet of pink roses when he picked me up. When I said I didn’t have a vase, he went downstairs to The Break and brought me one. When it was time to go, he pulled his truck right up to the front door so I wouldn’t have to walk through slush.

An hour seems like a long drive for a date, but it went by in a blink. We talked about simple stuff at first—weather, hockey, who gets to pick the music. We discussed the high school poetry slam, and trivia night at The Driftwood. Felix and Dylan are ramping up plans for the new park with mountain biking trails. Blake is dating someone new. Grant offered me a lap blanket if I got cold. A bottle of water. A phone charger. Car mints.

I told him about the time my Nana held a “gallery opening” for the lopsided clay animals her students were too embarrassed to take home, complete with little cheese cubes and apple juice in plastic wine glasses. Grant told me about the time Stan installed a bench outside one of his buildings after noticing that Robert always set his mailbag down on the same rock.

Somewhere on US-2, with Lake Michigan on one side of us and dense forest on the other, the conversation got quieter and more earnest. Grant told me how much he disliked being in the army, why he built the rage room, and how impressed he is at the way June runs the front of the business. I told him how the building needs updates I can’t afford. He said he knows. There was a spot of silence after that, but one we shared, not one we needed to fill. We arrived in St. Ignace without rushing.