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She smiled at him as he released her hand and opened the restaurant’s door, holding it for her to precede him. “It’s great, Levi. The design on the seats and the door panels is so striking.”
The acanthus scrolls embossed on the door panels and into the white leather seat gave the vehicle a western edge that he liked. His mother had told him the design was perfect to impress a girl, if he ever caught one.
Not that he’d been fishing for one, or even had his pole in the water recently, but if he had been, Grace Marshall was exactly the kind of girl he’d want to catch.
“Table for two?” a hostess asked, then picked up menus and led them to a booth in the corner without giving him a chance to reply.
Levi waited until Grace slid into the booth to take a seat facing both her and the door. He knew he was safe, but sometimes he just felt a need to be able to keep the exit in his line of sight. With nerves bubbling in his stomach and fear stabbing at him over doing or saying something he shouldn’t, the stress of the evening was about to overwhelm his ability to remain calm and rational.
When their waitress set two glasses of ice water in front of them, Levi drained half his glass and then gave the waitress a sheepish look as she placed napkins and silverware on the table.
“Anything besides water to drink?” she asked, looking at him and then Grace.
“I’d like a lemonade, please,” Grace said, smiling at the middle-aged woman.
“Do you have sweet tea?” Levi asked without glancing at the menu.
“Is there any other kind?” the woman asked with a cheeky grin.
He smiled. “No, ma’am.”
“I’ll bring your drinks and a pitcher of water while you decide what to order. The special tonight is meatloaf or beef stew. We also serve breakfast all day.”
Grace immediately flipped over the menu to the back and perused the breakfast offerings. Levi opened his menu and decided on the turkey dinner. He could get all the good, grass-fed beef he wanted at home, but they only had turkey at Thanksgiving.
“Anything look good?” he asked after he closed the menu and scooted it over to the edge of the table.
“Everything,” she looked up with a happy smile. “I love breakfast. It’s my favorite meal. If Cindy wouldn’t complain, I’d probably make breakfast for dinner every time it was my turn to cook.”
“You take turns cooking?” he asked, wondering if Grace was a good cook, not that it mattered. Even his poor attempts at cooking tasted like fine cuisine compared to what he’d eaten in Vietnam.
“We do. We alternate every other night. That way, neither of us is stuck doing all the cooking, although most of the time, we end up working together. A few nights a week, we try to cook enough of something to have plenty of leftovers, and we generally do some baking on the weekends so we don’t have to do it the rest of the week.”
“Sounds like you have a system that works.” He tried to think of something witty or at least halfway intelligent to say, but nothing came to him. Instead, he downed the rest of the water in his glass, then looked around, hoping the waitress would quickly return.
“What about you? Do you cook?” Grace asked as she placed her menu on top of his and leaned back in the booth.
“Only under duress. I can make toast and eggs without setting anything on fire, and I’m pretty handy with my dad’s barbecue grill. I can cook a good steak or burger on it.”
“That’s neat. My folks haven’t yet decided they should get a barbecue, but Cindy’s dad makes the best frankfurters on his.”
The waitress arrived with their drinks and took their orders before she filled Levi’s water glass and left the pitcher on the table.
“Does your family live nearby?” Levi asked Grace once they were alone, grateful to have finally landed on a topic that might involve more than one or two questions and could carry them through at least a few minutes of conversation.
Grace shook her head, causing the hair surrounding her face to sway enticingly. She tossed her hair back over her shoulders and took a sip of her water before she answered. “They live in Holiday, Oregon.”
Levi riffled through his brain, trying to recall if he’d ever heard of Holiday. He thought it was maybe up in the mountains but wasn’t entirely certain. “Is it near Pendleton?”
“No, not quite that far. It’s northeast of Baker City. About an hour from there up in the mountains. The air there is so crisp and fresh. To me, it always smells like Christmas.”
He smiled. “Does your family work in the timber industry?”
“No. We have a dairy. Cindy’s folks own a dry goods store, with clothing and household goods, fabric, that sort of thing.”
“I see. Tell me more about the dairy. How many head do your parents milk?”
Grace talked about their dairy operation with both knowledge and skill, making him think she’d helped milk more than her share of cows. He tried to picture her out in a barn dodging a manure-coated tail but just couldn’t quite make it take shape in his mind. Not when she looked like she could have walked right out of a fashion magazine.
