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Her gaze widened as they stood and waited for the crowd to thin so they could walk down the aisle and out of the theater.
“You’re a farmer?” she asked, sounding somewhat incredulous.
“Didn’t I mention that?” Levi asked, placing his hand on Grace’s back as they moved into the theater’s lobby.
“No, you did not. I just assumed with the cowboy clothes that …” She snapped her mouth shut, waited until they were outside in the cool evening air, then turned to him. “What exactly type of farmer are you?”
“Potatoes, mostly, although we put about fifteen percent of our acreage into sugar beets ten years ago.”
A frown creased her forehead. “Gibson. Potatoes. Your family farm is Gibson & Son?”
Levi nodded, surprised she’d heard of them. Granted, their potatoes were sold in grocery stores all around the area, but most people paid no mind to the name printed on the bags.
“And you’re the son part of that?” she asked as Levi took her hand, and they hurried across the street to his pickup.
“Guilty,” he said with a grin, opening the door and offering a hand that she took as she climbed in, appearing to be deep in thought. He jogged around the pickup, slid behind the wheel, closed the floor vent he’d left open, and looked at Grace.
She stared at him as though he’d sprouted horns on top of his head. Discomfited by her direct gaze, he searched for a distraction.
“Would you still like dessert?” he asked, wondering why she seemed almost perturbed by the fact that he was a farmer, not a cowboy. Just because shirts with snaps were easier for him to manage, and he preferred cowboy boots to other forms of footwear shouldn’t mean anything. Should it?
“Dessert,” she repeated, then nodded once.
“Pie? Ice cream? Cake?” Levi asked.
“Sure,” she said, then looked out the window as though lost in thought.
Her reaction to his chosen path in life made it seem as though she was disappointed that he wasn’t a real cowboy. He did have horses and enjoyed riding, and there were beef cattle they raised on the farm for their own use, but he’d never wanted to rope and ride the range as his choice of career. Levi had always felt happiest working the land that had been in his family since wagons rolled through on the Oregon Trail.
Levi drove to a restaurant he’d eaten at numerous times over the years and guided her inside to a booth in the back.
It wasn’t until he’d ordered a slice of peach pie with ice cream and Grace had chosen a piece of lemon meringue pie that she looked to him again, appearing contrite for her silence.
“I’m sorry, Levi. The realization I’d made erroneous assumptions based solely on your attire left me a little rattled. I’m sorry. My brothers all dress similar to you when they go to town, so I don’t know why I just assumed you were a cowboy. I’d like to hear more about your farm. It’s been in your family for a while, hasn’t it? I think I read something about it in the newspaper last spring.”
He nodded. “I’m the fourth generation to live there. My grandparents had two boys, and they split the work and the farm when my grandparents passed. Then my uncle decided he wanted to try his own thing, so Pop bought his share, and he moved his family up to Pasco, Washington, nine years ago.”
“The house you mentioned to Dr. O’Brien, is that on the farm?”
Levi was impressed she’d recalled that comment from his appointment last week. “Yep. It was my uncle’s house. It’s been empty all this time, but thanks to my mother’s ability to smother me nearly to death, I moved into it not long after I returned home. My dad helped me over the winter months to complete some of the bigger projects. Right now, I’m doing some finishing work in my spare time. I really need to buy furniture and wrap things up before my mother insists on helping me.”
Grace laughed. “She sounds like she really cares about you.”
“She does. So does Pop. Sometimes I wish I had nine siblings so Ma had more than just me to dote on and fuss over.”
“Does she have any hobbies?” Grace asked, stirring a spoon of sugar into the hot tea the waitress brought to her while Levi took a drink of the milk he’d ordered.
He swallowed. “You mean in addition to trying to run my life and my dad’s? Not really.”
Grace lifted an eyebrow and continued stirring her tea to cool it enough to drink. “Maybe you should help her find a few. Then, she might have less time to cluck over her lone chick.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her you referred to her as a fussy ol’ hen.”
Aghast, she shook a finger at him. “Levi Gibson! I said no such thing! Don’t you dare say that to her. When I meet her, I don’t need her to automatically hate me. Mothers tend to dislike the girls their sons date, you know, without making things worse on purpose.”
Encouraged by what she’d said, he assumed she intended to go out with him again. He’d thought their evening had gone well, but the fact that Grace mentioned meeting his mother at some point in the future buoyed his spirits.
“Stella Gibson is not your usual mother,” Levi said. “She’d think your comment was hilarious, and then she’d give you a long, in-depth list of all my worst habits and character flaws. If you hadn’t run off by then, she’d welcome you with open arms and invite you into her inner domain, also known as the kitchen, and insist you bake something together.”
