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Ruth gave him a slightly dry smile. “I work during lunch—and I eat here. I usually don’t leave until dinnertime.”
“Dinner, then.” He tried upping the wattage on his smile. He didn’t normally encounter this much resistance when he tried to ask a woman out.
“I have dinner with Carol.” She nodded toward the counter.
For the first time, he noticed her daughter back behind the deli case. In fact, her daughter was giving him a definite stink-eye.
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure why he’d forgotten about Carol. Maybe because he wasn’t used to dating a woman who had a daughter to think about. “Could you get a sitter?”
“Carol just got back from Colorado Springs. I don’t want to leave her with anyone right now. Being a mother isn’t something you can take time off from. It’s pretty much a twenty-four-seven gig.” Ruth folded her arms across her chest.
He blew out a breath. Subtlety wasn’t cutting it. “Look, I want to see you again. Seriously. Name a time you’re free. I’ll be there. So help me.”
Ruth gave him a long look. “I don’t know when that will be. If ever. Right now my life is pretty screwed up. I don’t know when it will get unscrewed.”
Maybe he was kidding himself, but he thought he saw a flash of regret in her eyes as she said it.
“Whenever it is. For however long it is, I’d like to go out with you again.” He shrugged. “I’d even go for a midmorning coffee if that would work.”
For a moment, her lips twitched, almost as if she were considering a smile. Then she sighed. “If I ever have a spare, nonworking moment, I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to go make some cheese.” She turned on her heel and headed through the door at the side that led into her cheese factory.
Struck out. Struck out all the way.
True. Sad, but true. But he wasn’t ready to give up. Ruth Colbert was one of the most intriguing women he’d met in a while; definitely worth the challenge.
He turned back toward the door, giving Carol a quick smile as he did. “School’s out, huh?”
“Yeah.” She pulled a cheese log out of the case. “And I wish I was someplace else.”
That makes two of us, kid. He pushed his way through the door, listening to the bell jangle as he closed it behind him.
…
Ruth grabbed the cheese cutter and went to work. Fortunately, this part of the process required a lot of muscle because she definitely wanted to punch something. Possibly Liam Dempsey.
What had she been thinking of, anyway? His dusky hazel eyes? His brown hair with those reddish glints? His nicely rounded biceps, supposedly earned by heaving barrels around at the brewery?
Whatever. She’d had a momentary lapse of sanity and had sex with Liam Dempsey. That didn’t mean it was going to happen again. She knew better than to get involved in a dead end relationship.
She’d thought about that evening quite a bit over the last couple of days. Certainly more than she should. It wasn’t like she hadn’t been with anybody for a long time.
Well, yes, if she were honest, that was exactly what it was like. Because she hadn’t been with anybody in a lot longer than she liked. She didn’t have time for romance. She didn’t even have time for illicit sex in the form of a quickie. She worked full days and then she went home and took care of Carol. And then she went to bed and slept until the next day when the whole cycle started all over again. She was a working mom who didn’t have time for foolishness.
You are a drone who is working her life away.
Ruth paused, closing her eyes as the curds and whey sloshed gently in the vat. There was more than a grain of truth in that thought, but it didn’t matter. She’d been doing it for twelve years, and she’d go on doing it until Carol took off for the wide world beyond Antero, Colorado.
And then what will you do?
Something like panic clutched her heart for a moment, but she fought it down. She’d raised Carol by herself after she and David had broken up. She’d run the Salty Goat on her own because nobody else would do it for her and she loved her work. Maybe she’d given up a lot to do all of that, but she wouldn’t have done things any differently. And who knew where Liam Dempsey was going to end up? He was the definition of “short time.” A fling.
