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“Yes,” Lee said, taking another bite of his treat.
“Well, what did she say?”
He looked up and out the windshield. “She said she thought we should go out before the wedding,” he said, some of his joy freefalling now. “So we’re goin’ to dinner in a couple of hours.”
“You’re kidding,” Cherry said.
“No, why?” Lee didn’t like her theatrics, and his irritation with his sister grew. “Is that bad?”
“No,” Cherry said, her voice too high now. “Not bad at all.”
“But…” Lee prompted, scooping up another bite of ice cream, this one with a nice load of chocolate chips. He put the whole thing in his mouth, which had started to grow freezing cold.
“Did she commit to the wedding?”
“She said—” Lee cut off, trying to think back through the conversation. It took him several moments, and not even the chocolate in his mouth helped settle him. “She said she didn’t think our first date should be at the wedding.”
“So she didn’t commit to it.”
“No,” Lee said darkly. He stirred the melting edges of the shake into the thicker middle part. “Not that I recall.”
“But dinner tonight is good,” Cherry said with a false brightness to her voice. “Where are you going to take her?”
Lee looked up again, this time plenty of alarm streaming through him “I…have no idea.”
Cherry laughed, but Lee didn’t find anything funny. He lived out on the farm, and he only came to town to collect Ford on Friday afternoons. He drove him back to school on Monday mornings. He might stop by the drugstore then, or pick up some essential groceries for the weekend on Friday. But he didn’t have friends in town, and he didn’t socialize with anyone outside of the men and women who worked at or came to Sweet Water Falls Farm or Cooper & Co.
“I’ll look up some places for you,” Cherry said. “And text you.”
“Thank you,” Lee said. “My brain feels like it’s gone on vacation.” He shook his head. “Every time I’m around this woman, I fall apart.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” Cherry asked.
“How is that good, Cherry?” He shook his head again. No, falling apart around the gorgeous Rosalie Reynolds was definitelynotgood. Jeez Louise.
“It means you feel something for her,” Cherry said. “It’s sweet.”
“I just end up looking like a fool,” he muttered. “Nothin’ sweet about that.”
“Just remember that she said yes to dinner,” Cherry said. “She must see something she likes already.”
“I can’t imagine what,” Lee said, actually looking down at his shirt. Perhaps Rosalie liked bright colors on cowboys.
“Come on, Lee,” Cherry said. “You’re a handsome man.”
“Okay,” he said, a new blush crawling into his face for absolutely no reason. “You promised to tell me who you asked to the wedding if I went inside and apologized and asked Rosalie, and I did all of the above.”
Cherry remained silent for a few moments, and then she cleared her throat. “Fine,” she said in her ultra-refined voice. The tone she used whenever she talked about her job in the city, as if Sweet Water Falls was way beneath her. “I asked Charlie, and he said yes.”
Lee forgot about ice cream and video games and his own name. “You asked Charlie?”
“Yes,” Cherry said, plenty of haughtiness in her voice. “I don’t need a lecture from you about him.”
“You don’t?” Lee asked, dumbstruck. “Cherry…the man broke your heart. He’s the reason you won’t come home.”
“Not entirely true,” Cherry said. “There are many and varied reasons I won’t come home.”
“He’s the biggest one.” Lee pictured the tall, tan, talented Sheriff’s deputy. Charles Hooper had dated Cherry for years. Three or four or six, Lee wasn’t sure. He hadn’t wanted to get married until he’d achieved a certain rank in the Sheriff’s department, and Cherry wasn’t going to be a perpetual girlfriend while the man built his career.
