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Swallowing hard, I took a sip of my water. “Maybe I don’t want to try the sausage.”
“Pretty much every dish in Switzerland is going to feature sausage. But I would suggest you try the raclette and rosti,” he said. “I think you’ll like both of them. And it wouldn’t be Switzerland without cheese fondue.”
“Fondue?” I didn’t realize that was a Swiss thing. “That sounds familiar enough.”
The waiter came back a few minutes later, and Beau put in our order. I didn’t have any idea what the first two dishes he’d mentioned would turn out to be, but when the waiter brought us cheese fondue and beer, I was happy. Beau and I nibbled on bread, meats, and other items dipped in the melted cheese. Of course, it was delicious. I could’ve just eaten that.
We talked about the trail Beau was planning to take me to see the next day. I was excited, but I knew it was going to take me a while to adjust to the change in time. I’d slept quite a bit on the plane and still found myself stifling a yawn.
“Am I boring?” Beau asked with a grin.
“No, not at all. I’m just trying to remember it’s not the middle of the night,” I told him.
“It does get easier the more you travel,” he assured me.
“I hope I get the chance to find out.” I dipped a piece of bread in the cheese and popped it into my mouth.
The waiter brought two dishes and set them in front of both of us. They were identical, and it was a lot of food. I stared at Beau until he said, “So you can try them both. Don’t worry. No one expects you to clean both plates.”
I relaxed a little bit at that. Pointing at the first dish, I asked, “What’s this?”
“It’s raclette,” he explained. “It’s melted cheese served with boiled potatoes, assorted meats, and pickles.”
Now that he had told me, I could see each of those components. I picked up my fork and tried it. The cheese was rich and crispy, which made it different than the fondue. The potatoes were creamy, despite being boiled and not mashed, and the piece of meat I tasted was savory and perfectly cooked.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“Yes, it’s great,” I told him before taking a drink of my beer. “And what’s this?” I pointed at the other dish.
“That’s rosti. It’s essentially a sauteed potato. Give it a try.” He gave me a reassuring head nod, so I took a fork full and slid it into my mouth. It was also very good. I couldn’t decide which dish I liked the most, but after all the fondue I’d had, I didn’t think I’d be able to finish either one of them.
We took our time eating, letting each bite settle as we sipped our beers and chatted. Our conversation led back to work and our plans for the future. Eventually, I got back to the topic that was most important to me—kids. “I feel like I’d want to have kids within the next five years or so,” I told him, trying to gauge his reaction.
Beau arched an eyebrow and slowly nodded, but he didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure if that meant that he thought that was too soon, as if perhaps I was trying to get him to commit to something long term with me, or if maybe he wasn’t interested in kids at all.
I needed to find out. I was really beginning to develop feelings for this man, and if I wanted to let what was happening between us flourish, I needed to know whether he wanted the same things in life that I did. If he didn’t want kids, that would be a deal breaker for me.
The question stayed stuck in my throat, though. I picked up my glass and took another drink of beer, feeling how full I was becoming as it settled in my stomach. When I set my glass back down, I picked up my napkin and wiped my mouth before asking, “Do you like kids?”
Beau looked a little uncomfortable as he said, “Uh, yeah. Kids are great.” He took another bite of his potato dish and didn’t elaborate.
He hadn’t answered the question I wanted the answer to, but then, I hadn’t really asked it either. I needed to be more specific. “Do you want to have kids one day?”
His eyes stayed downcast as he swallowed hard. No. He didn’t want to have kids, did he? Hearing me go on and on about how I couldn’t wait to be a mom must’ve been really annoying for him. I wished he would’ve just told me then that he wasn’t interested in being a father.
“I haven’t thought about it in a long time,” Beau finally said, keeping me puzzled. “Not since—”
He stopped talking, not completing the sentence, and a troubled look passed across his face before he shook his head and said, “I don’t know.”
I knew better than to press the topic. I could only imagine he was going to say something like he hadn’t thought about it since his wife died. Maybe they’d planned on having kids together, and now that she was gone, he wasn’t interested anymore. Perhaps he didn’t even want to get married again. Just because I was having all of these feelings for him, that didn’t mean that he was as attracted to me. For all I knew, I was just a girl he was having a good time with.
That hit me hard, right in the gut. I was letting my heart move way faster than I should’ve been, and if I didn’t slow things down a little bit, I was going to end up getting hurt.
At Beau’s age, a man usually knew whether he wanted to have kids, after all. He was at least ten years older than me, I figured, though I’d never asked. Was that the problem? Did he think the age difference between us was too great? Maybe he thought I was too immature to be a mother in five years or less.
“Georgia, are you all right?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah. I’m sorry. I was just stuck in my head for a moment.” I could tell that my questions had been upsetting to him, so I decided to change the subject. Pointing at the head of a goat that was hanging on a wall nearby, I asked, “So how do you think it went down? One too many beers one night, and he accidentally took a wrong step off the side of a mountain?”
