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“Yeah.” He slung his arm around her. “I do know. I’d had the worst day ever, and I really wanted to see you, and I was so upset I had to cancel. I didn’t want to think about having to see you that night, and I didn’t want our first date to be you bringing me pizza out here.”
She drifted closer to his side as he took her up the sidewalk. The wind gusted, and he nearly lost his cowboy hat. He saved it by pressing down quickly on his head. “Tonight? Can I take you to dinner tonight?”
She shook her head. “I can’t, Will. My daddy has a doctor’s appointment in an hour, and we get sandwiches at this place in the mall every Thursday.” She gave him a smile, but he didn’t return it.
He stopped walking and cupped her face in his hands. “I’m sorry I made your life harder. I won’t do that again, I promise you that.” He dropped his hands, stealing his warmth and his affection from her. “But I understand if you just want to walk away now.” His jaw jumped, and he looked over her shoulder and into the distance. “Might be best for you.”
She let the wind tug at her hair and jacket without resisting them. “Will,” she finally whispered, and that brought his attention back to her. “You’re not like the other men I’ve dated, that’s true. I worked for a bull of a chef in Dallas, and I had to close up my candy shop in New Orleans when my business partner-slash-boyfriend stole from me.”
She took a deep, deep breath. “When I look into the future, I don’t see either of them. I see Sweet Water Falls, and I see Sweet Water Taffy.” She gripped the front of his denim jacket, wondering how a man could make such a thing look so sexy. “I don’t know about you and me yet, because we’re just getting started, but I know I don’t want to walk away right now.”
He nodded, those blue-green eyes like hot fire in her soul. “How long can you stay?”
“Only a few more minutes,” she said, thinking of the drive to get her dad and then get to the doctor.
Will looked up into the sky. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go inside, because it looks like it might rain again.”
Gretchen went with him, because she liked being at his side. She liked the sound of his voice in her ears, and she liked being able to share her day with someone with human DNA and who hadn’t served in the Army fifty years ago. She could take a little bark from Will Cooper, and as he served her a piece of gooey chocolate cake, her world got a whole lot brighter.
“One of my goals this year,” he said as he slid onto the barstool next to hers. “Is to take more time off. I need a break. I work too much.” He took off his cowboy hat and tossed it on the counter. “Then I’m grumpy as can be, and I don’t like being like that.”
She took a bite of her cake, everything sugary and rich exactly what she needed. “Me too, Will. I work too much at the candy shop. We can work on working less together.” She grinned at him, and this time, he did smile back.
He leaned toward her and swept his lips across her cheek again. Gretchen leaned into his touch this time, his kiss a brand against her skin. “Tomorrow night,” he whispered in her ear. “Can we go out together tomorrow night?”
He pulled back, and Gretchen caught the desire and hope swimming in his eyes. She wondered what he’d looked like when she’d called on Tuesday, and what color his eyes would be when he finally kissed her.
She nodded and forked up another bite of cake. “Yeah,” she said. “We can go out tomorrow night.”
