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“If you want a lot of stuff, the Sureway is only a ten-minute drive.But Otter Street has the little mom and pop grocery, and Molly’s or the diner will do you a to-go box if you don’t have time to cook.My cousin, the little league one, runs a butcher from behind his house.You don’t gotta leave the Falls if you don’t want to.”
“I think I’ll need some more unusual stuff for my bakes.But I’ll definitely check out the grocer.And the diner.It’ll be my first time in anactualdiner.I don’t think we went last time.”
“Really?Well, you’re in for a treat.Mrs.K’s had it refurbed.”
“Does it have a jukebox?”
“What self-respecting diner doesn’t?”Rick countered.
“Truth.”I lifted my bottle, and he clinked it with his own.
“So what’s the story with Laurie being your aunt?”he asked, after taking a long drink from the bottle.
“My mum’s American.Both she and my aunt grew up in Louisville.Their parents, my grandparents, owned a restaurant there.They had Aunt Laurie and my mum quite late in life, and decided to move into the suburbs to raise their kids.”
Rick’s gaze never left mine.He always seemed to be hanging on my every word; it was gratifying how he listened with his body turned to mine, fully engaged.“How did your parents meet?”
“My parents were pen pals.”My whole heart warmed saying it, and Rick’s smile probably mirrored my own.“My Dad’s family moved over to London from Hong Kong when he was five.He told her all about Chinatown in his letters.”
“That’s a cool story.What made your mom want a British pen pal?”
I grinned.“She wanted to meet someone who lived in the same country as the Royal Family.”
We laughed together, and a knot I didn’t know had been in my stomach unravelled.
A breeze fluttered my hair, and I pushed it out of my face with my free hand, only for it to catch on my nose again.I blew out a breath.“The trouble with flyaway Asian hair.”
“Let me.”Rick turned toward me.Awareness of his touch shivered through me as he gently freed the lock of hair and tucked it behind my ear.The tip of his index finger lingered just under my earlobe for a moment longer than was proper, and my gaze flew to his.A hundred unsaid words tumbled into the space between our bodies.
“Maddie,” he murmured, that gorgeous drawl half an octave lower than normal.
“Yeah?”
He dropped his hand.His knuckles skimmed my bare arm.“Let me take you to the diner.First proper experience should be with an American, right?Well, Irish-American if you go back a little,” he amended.“We’re all immigrants here.”
“Are you asking me on adatedate?”I added before thinking, unable to help myself.Maybe I shouldn’t have teased him, teaseduslike that, but I only had so much willpower.He was eroding it very quickly with his kindness and charm.Funny and cute and kind.The holy trifecta.I was powerless.
“If I was…” His hazel eyes warmed, going soft as he looked at me.“Would you say yes?”
My breath caught.It had only been days since I’d considered myself engaged.
“Sorry.I shouldn’t have saiddatedate.I need to tell you…” I let the words hang.
Rick lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.“Don’t gotta tell me anythin’ you’re not ready to.”
He was too good to be real.“Can it just be new friends having dinner?”I asked, regretting my knee-jerk flirtation, not because of the flirting, but because I didn’t want to hurt this man.
He was so handsome and sweet, but most of allkind,and that was my weakness more than anything.
“Of course it can,” he said easily.“Happy to be your friend-date guide to small town Kentucky while you’re here.”
I wanted him to be so much more than that, but I had to remember that I lived an ocean away.And I was starting to think that Rick Callahan deserved much more than to be someone’s rebound fling.
* * *
We agreed to go to the diner together on Saturday evening.The day before the baseball game.Should I have been spending a whole weekend with a guy I foundridiculouslyattractive, on the coattails of a bad break-up?
Probably not.
