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“Didn’t do it for the cookies,” he says, “as delicious as they are.” He looks straight at me. “I wanted to ask Belinda for a favor, and I thought she might be more willing to say yes if I helped her get settled.”
Uh-oh.
Please lord don’t tell me he wants me to babysit for him and the little wifey.
Or buy Tupperware/leggings/makeup/essential oils from the little wifey.
I take a cookie, and a deep breath. “So,” I say, “ask away.”
He waits until I look him in the eye again. “I need a date for the charity gala on New Year’s Eve.”
I blink.
Seriously? This handsome guy, with his sexy smirk and great butt, can’t scrounge up a date on his own?
He spreads his hands. “Nice buffet spread, champagne, door prizes, live music and dancing sound good to you?”
I’d have to get a new dress. Not that that would be a reason not to go, but…
“Why don’t you have a date already?” I blurt.
“Yes, why don’t you?” Granna asks, clearly hoping for some juicy gossip. I give her A Look, and she turns away, elaborately unconcerned. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ve only fed you cookies all your life.”
It suddenly occurs to me that he might have some private reason for not wanting a real date.
“There are a number of reasons,” Austin says. “Let me take you to dinner tonight, just something easy and casual, and we can talk about them. What do you think?”
I’d been looking forward to Granna’s roast beef and Potatoes Anna. I hesitate. “I think we had a special meal planned—”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, honey,” Granna butts back in. “My beef roast isn’t thawed all the way, so I’d been thinking tomorrow might be better for that, anyway. You go on with Austin, and maybe he’ll come have Sunday lunch with us.” She beams at both of us.
“That sounds great to me, Mrs. Carter,” Austin says. “Belinda?” His eyes are dark and clever, and I’m getting the good kind of chills, the way he’s looking at me with them.
“All right, then.”
Eight hours later, we’re sitting in a booth at Louie’s New York South, eating Louie’s excellent sausage-and-mushroom pizza and just hanging out. Despite the thrum of attraction between us, I’m having a great time.
For one thing, Louie’s pizza is amazing. Austin tells me that Louie the man is a former Brooklynite who vacationed in the Blue Ridge Mountains twenty years ago, went home, packed up his stuff, sold his house, quit his job, and moved to Rivertown to open his own New York-style pizza place. The crust is thin and crispy but foldable; the sauce is deliciously herbed; the cheese is perfectly melted; the sausage is to die for.
“Granna and Grampa never brought me here.” I sigh in pleasure at another bite.
He smiles. “Yeah, my parents don’t really do casual dining like this. Mom’s a great cook, so mostly we ate at home. When we went out, it was for special occasions. That’s kinda the way I like it. I mean, sure I get takeout on nights I work late, but I’d really rather cook something simple myself.”
“You like to cook?”
“Sure do.”
So do I. We compare our signature dishes, and decide that at some point in the future we’ll pit his maple-bourbon pork chops against my lemon-thyme roast chicken. “There will be time for that, I guess,” Austin says, eyebrows raised.
“I’d think there would. I know I’ll be working a lot, especially at first,” I say, thinking about my career, “but humans are not made to work 24/7. We’re just not. We need evenings cooking at home, Saturdays hiking Miller Mountain, snowy January days making snowmen.”
He nods a little ruefully. “I’ve been working too much, I think. I think one reason is that I don’t have someone to come home to. Well, my family, but I mean someone special.” He tells me about the ex-girlfriend who seemed to want him only for his wallet, and the flirty girls who still seem to only see him as a stepping stone to bigger, better, and more expensive stuff. “Those are some of the reasons I wanted to take you to the gala. I didn’t want to have to fend those girls off, and I wanted to spend the evening with someone I can talk to, someone real.”
Well, this all sounds very wholesome.
Dammit.
I don’t want to be wholesome; I want him to kiss me stupid.
