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Their rapport was going south fast along with her mood, and he needed to fix it.
No, hewantedto fix it.
He didn’t want her to think badly of him. Normally, he wouldn’t have cared, but she intrigued him, and he wanted to see more of her. He wanted to learn what else they had in common besides having farmers’ stock and roots in the area. Just those two things put her in a class above most women he’d been involved with. Combined with her ability to hold him in a conversation, they put her in a class with Heidi.
He poured a little more wine into Valerie’s glass and leaned his forearms onto the table across from her. “Do you think you can swing by my house tomorrow and take a look? If it helps to convince you, I’ll serve you a real meal.”
“Damn.” She leaned against the cushioned backrest and groaned. “I don’t know. Tomorrow might be busy. I’ve got to get Carine back to her car and who knows how long it might take to get her home if an empty gas tank doesn’t turn out to be the problem. I’m in Shora, she’s in Elizabeth City, and you’re down on the sound. That’s a lot of driving.”
“But you have the entire afternoon.”
She picked up her wine and took a long sip, staring at him over the rim. Keeping him waiting.
He hated that, but he probably deserved it.
She drank half of the wine before she set the glass down and tented her fingers. “You know my schedule so well?”
“I’m assuming. For all I know, you find lots of delicious trouble to get into on Saturday nights around here.”
“Mm-hmm. Trouble with a capital T. There are some great bars up in Norfolk. Lots of military officers hang out there. I never have to pay for my own drinks. They’re so chivalrous.”
“It’s not chivalry if they’re expecting to get something out of it.”
“I’m not so naive to think they’re not. They just don’t get upset when they don’t.” She dragged her index finger around the rim of her glass again. “Areyougoing to get upset?”
He picked up the glasses holding the plans down at the corners, rolled up the paper, and stuffed it back into its tube. “Only if you lead me on.”
“I think I’ve been pretty clear about what I want and don’t want, so I can’t see where there’d be room for any false assumptions.”
The thing about assumptions was that they were malleable things, shaped by quick judgments at specific moments of time. His assumptions about her were shifting already. Tomorrows always brought new perspectives, and for all he knew, he could decide she was worth pursuing.
He wasn’t going to get his hopes up, though. That was always a mistake.
