“What is going on in there?” I asked her.
“Pageant rehearsal. Today is inspiration day. We need to get a move on,” she said and pulled out her phone. “There are, according to my research, at least five restaurants in town. The Cow Farm, Salt Springs Diner, Sweet Bliss, the Monarch and Mountain Pub, and someplace called Dixie’s.”
We stepped outsideand she sucked in a breath. “Jesus, it’s cold. How do you people survive here?” She started to run toward my car.
“Careful of your ankle,” I shouted after her and she stopped running, gave me a long look over her shoulder, and climbed into the passenger seat of my car.
I sent a quick text to Danny to push my two o’clock. This was going to be a long lunch.
The Cow Farm, which was Salt Spring’s high-end steakhouse was closed for lunch so we went right to the Monarch and Mountain Pub.
“Is it named after your brother?” she asked as we slipped into the padded booth. The pub was all dark wood and nice soft lighting. Cozy booths and a big long bar that invited people to belly up to it.
“Believe it or not,” I said, “mountains existed before my brother had the nickname.”
She blinked at me and then smiled. “You’re jealous.”
“Of my brother? Hell no. The guy is missing teeth.”
“You’re jealous that he gets all this attention and is almost never home. You stayed.”
“Why in the world would you think that?”
“You hear things at the front desk, Ethan. You hear lots of things.”
Pat, the guy who ran the pub, came to take our orders, his white apron stretched taut across his barrel chest. I opened my menu but Lexie pushed hers back at Pat.
“What’s the best thing you serve?” she asked.
“Shepherd’s pie,” Pat said, and I nodded. It was a good shepherd’s pie with just the right amount of gravy in the meat and good fluffy potatoes on top.
“Awesome, we’ll have one of those. And what’s the most popular dish?”
“Cheeseburger with fries. Gravy on the side.”
“And we’ll have one of those.” Lexie smiled at Pat and the poor guy looked dazzled.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be right back—”
“What do you usually get?” Lexie asked me. “Get it, so we sample lots of things.”
“I’ll have the fish and chips,” I said and handed Pat my menu. “Side of gravy.”
“My god, that’s a lot of gravy.”
Once Pat was gone Lexie pulled a little notebook out of her bag and a pen with a fuzzy pink and silver poof on the end.
“Are you going to write a review?” I asked.
“Just a few notes so I know what to tell people when they ask at the desk.”
“Lexie.” I shook my head. “Do you take every job you do this seriously?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said. “The first job I got was the coat check at Golden Steer and I was like…how hard can this be? Take a coat, hang it up, tear off a tag, hand them the tag.”
“Let me guess, it wasn’t that easy?”
“No, the job was that easy but people make everything just a little bit harder, don’t they?”
“Yeah,” I said, watching her take a sip from her water. “Some of them can. Some come along and make everything better.”
“Okay Mr. Charm. You keep that over on your side of the table.” She tried to look stern, but she was smiling. I lifted my hands in surrender.
“You excited about being mayor?” she asked.
“I am.”
“I bet you’ll be good at it.”
“I hope so. I mean, I think it’s like you said, the job isn’t that hard. Make smart choices that help the citizens of Salt Springs. But people make it trickier.”
“Did you always want to be mayor? Growing up on that tree farm you were, like, I want to be married in Vegas and be mayor of Salt Springs?”
I laughed. “Actually, I just wanted to be a lawyer.”
“Why law?”
“Because my mom said I’d be good at it. And I like rules and I like control.”
She sat back in the booth. The holly in her hair had slipped out and I reached out and tucked it deeper into her hair. The soft strands were like silk against my skin. I took my time, longing to spread my fingers out, pull the ponytail loose, cup the back of her head in my palm.
“Ethan?” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
And then I realized what I was doing, my fingers deep in her hair, her head tilted back. It was hushed and quiet in this little booth and I could kiss her for days.
And she wasn’t pulling away.
“Can you honestly say you don’t want to kiss me? You don’t want to find out if it was as good between us as you remember?”
“Of course I want to kiss you,” she answered, and my fingers clenched in her hair. “But I’m not going to.”