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Of course he did. His heart was big enough for a bunch of brothers and sisters, his parents, the guests, his employees, and animals.
And you, she thought, and she didn’t immediately try to drive the thought away. “Let me guess,” she said, deciding to take things a bit lighter before she told him about her past. “It’s a cattle dog, and it’s yours, but it lives with Todd.”
Blake let out a scoff, his gaze heavy on the side of her face. “How did you know that? Did you ask Todd already? Did he say something to you about it?”
Gina laughed then, fueled by the distaste in his tone. “No,” she said, still giggling. “I just didn’t see a dog—nor any evidence of a dog—at your place the other day. So if you have one, it must live with Todd.”
“He’s the foreman,” Blake said, looking out his passenger window at the darkness streaking by. “It made more sense for him to keep Azure. The dog wasn’t happy laying on my feet in my office. He’s meant to be herding cattle.”
“So heisa cattle dog.”
“He’s a blue heeler.”
“Mm.” Gina couldn’t believe she was right, though the fact that she’d guessed correctly only told her how well she knew Blake. He could handle the harder thing she wanted to tell him this morning. “I just wanted you to know that I was engaged a few years ago.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t know why, but it felt like something I should tell you.”
She looked at him as he swung his attention across the windshield and back to her. “Interesting. What was his name?”
“Brock Palmer,” she said. “He obviously wasn’t from here.”
“Was he a chef too?”
“No,” she said. “He owned a skateboard shop in the resort where I worked.” She focused on the road again, her heart tearing a little bit. “I loved him, and he loved me, and we were engaged for about five months.”
Blake reached over and took her stiff right hand from the wheel. “What happened?”
She breathed in deeply and then let it all out. “His ex-girlfriend came back into town and wanted to get back together. It was like he didn’t even remember that he’d met me.” She gave a light laugh, though she’d been in one of her lowest lows of her life after Brock had left. He’d closed his shop and just…left.
“I’m so sorry,” Blake said.
Gina took another big breath. “What about you? You’re a good-looking man. Who have you been out with?”
“I’m a good-looking man?” he repeated, a chuckle following.
“Come on,” she said, squeezing his hand. “You know you are.”
“Do I?”
Gina looked at him, her foot easing off the accelerator. “Blake, I think you’re super good-looking.” Her throat turned to dust, and she tried to swallow past it. She needed to lighten this, and fast. “That cologne? Mm, yeah, that smells nice too.”
He blinked at her in the dim light, and Gina offered him a smile. She increased the pressure on his hand again, and he returned the squeeze this time. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I think you’re beautiful, of course.”
“Thank you,” she said simply, the moment between them tender and sweet.
He looked away, and she realized she was going ten under the speed limit. She jammed her foot on the gas, which sent both of them back into the head rests. “Whoa,” Blake said, laughing.
“Sorry,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “I was datin’ Mari Lucas for a while there,” he said. “A year or so. I thought we were real serious.”
“Mari Lucas, huh?” Gina asked. Of course she knew Mari. The Lucases had lived in the Chestnut Springs area for decades too. “She’s a couple years younger than us.”
“Yeah,” Blake said. “She didn’t think we were real serious. We went to dinner one night, and I was going to ask her about us maybe getting married, and she broke up with me instead.”
“Oh, no.”
“I didn’t read it right at all,” he said. “I’d rather just use words now rather than try to figure out what someone else is thinking. But—” He hit the T really hard. “Most women around here don’t like that.”
“They don’t?” She glanced at him just as her phone started to tell her of her upcoming turn.
