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“Thanks,” she said as he held the door open for her.
They walked out to the parking lot. He’d parked next to the BMW that he’d seen at Brian’s office. He was right—it was hers. White in color, nothing bold or flashy there either.
Her stomach chose that moment to grumble loudly. He was pretty hungry himself. Maybe he could take advantage of it.
“Do you need to go to court or see another client?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m going back to the office.”
“I know Brian gives you a lunch hour. Why don’t we go to lunch? My treat. You know, lunch with your client that you can get to learn more about.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Billable hours kind of get to know more about you, or a date kind of get to know more about you?”
“I can handle the billable hours if that is what you are thinking.”
“But you weren’t thinking along those lines,” she said, grinning.
He liked the look in her eyes. One of interest and a little bit of humor.
“Not really,” he said.
She shifted her bag to look at her watch. “I’ve got an hour for lunch if you’ve got time.”
“Perfect,” he said. “There is a restaurant right around the corner.”
“I saw it when I was coming here.”
“Then if that is acceptable to you, we can go have lunch.”
“I find that acceptable,” she said. She was laughing at him. He didn’t care. Not if it was working.
They both climbed in their vehicles and drove around the corner, parked and got out.
It didn’t seem to bother her that he showed up in jeans and sneakers for the closing. It was what he wore daily. He wasn’t a suit-and-tie type of person. Never that.
“Hey, Cal.”
“Hi, Caroline. Table for two.”
“Sure thing,” Caroline said. They knew him here. He supplied their liquor for the bar. He’d be talking to them at some point to see if they wanted to add the beer on tap that he was going to be part owner of soon.
“Do you know everyone?” Mia asked him. There was the humor in her eyes again.
“Hardly,” he said. “But they get their liquor from me here. A lot of restaurants do in the area rather than a distributor.”
He gave a steep discount—maybe not as much of one as a major distributor—and delivered faster. A lot of smaller businesses liked to keep things local and he’d banked on that when he reached out to many years ago to start this.
“Which brings us to the brewery,” she said. “It’s all connected, isn’t it? You’re the face of that.”
He started to laugh. “I’m not sure I’d say that. But yes, I’m well known in the area. I’ve got a lot of fingers in pies and I like sweet things.”
He lifted his eyebrows at her and she only laughed again. He knew it was cheesy on his part to say what he had, but it’s how he always was with people.
Cal was good at making them comfortable so that they opened up to him.
Just like his father in a way. His mother too.
“That might explain the bakery then,” she said. “Now that we’ve got the time, what do you say you tell me about how smart I am for figuring out how they all tie together? I will say that Brian gave me a bit of a clue.”
