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Gretchen sucked in a breath, but Will didn’t look over at her. The road was dark, and he needed to make sure he didn’t kill them on the way to pasta bliss in Castleton. “Will,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“That’s why you asked.” He did look over at her then. Her arms had released, and she wore a genuinely compassionate look now. “Right?”
“I mean…yes.”
“You didn’t tell me anything about who you dated in the past. You said your boyfriend stole from you. That’s it.”
“That’s a lot,” Gretchen said.
“What was his name?”
Her arms cinched around herself again, and Will wished he hadn’t asked. “Malcolm Adams,” she said. “We opened a candy shop together in New Orleans. I thought we’d get married, work the shop, teach our children all of our ways with caramel and chocolate.” She sighed, and Will really didn’t like the sound of that.
“Things just don’t work out sometimes,” she said. “You know?”
“I’ve experienced that, yes,” he said quietly. He reached over and took her hand in his. “I’ve seen people work through difficult things too, and they do stay together and work out. So it goes both ways.”
Gretchen nodded and looked out her window. “Yeah.”
“Do you miss him or the candy shop?” Will asked.
She swung her attention back to him, her hand tightening around his. “Neither.”
“Then why are you sad?” He glanced at her but quickly put his attention back on the road.
“I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “There’s this element of fantasy, right? The big house, the white picket fence, the children…”
Will wouldn’t allow himself to clear his throat. “That fantasy comes true for people.”
“I know,” she said. “But not for me, it hasn’t.”
“Not yet,” he said, looking at her again. “Right? It’s not too late for any of that.”
“Will,” she said, her voice definitely brighter now. “How old do you think I am?”
“I have no idea,” he said, and he did clear his throat then. “My mama taught me not to ask a lady’s age.”
Gretchen giggled, and that made Will smile. “You say anything else you want though.”
He squeezed her hand. “I do?”
“Do you miss him or the candy shop?” Gretchen asked, dropping her voice and mimicking Will’s. “Who asks someone that?”
“You seemed sad,” he said, a fire lighting inside his chest. “I was tryin’ to figure out why.”
“You were tryin’ to figure out if I was ready to date you or not.”
“That too,” he shot back. “Is there a problem with that?”
“Yes,” Gretchen said, holding her own with him. “Not every woman is going to be Tara.”
Will sucked in a breath and held it, wondering how this conversation had gone from her flirting with him about how old she was to the biting quality in her voice when she saidTara.
“I’m sorry,” she said at the same time he said, “I don’t think every woman is Tara.”
Pinpricks of light appeared on the horizon, and Will kept driving. “I dated her for a long time, Gretchen. Three years. Before her, I hadn’t dated in a while, and I thought she was going to be my fantasy, you know? That I’d have the cute house with the wreath on the door, and the kids in the yard, and there wasn’t a candy shop, but they’d all come with me to the dairy farm, boys and girls alike.”
He couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.
