The gesture is so simple and easy, I don’t know what to do about it. Is this what it’s like to have a crush? God, it feels like so much more than that.
She did spend most of the night talking, but she would ask me about my life too. I told her about the farm and Otis, and she told me about her sister and parents. I never asked about the fiancé, and she never volunteered the information. It was like we both agreed to not mention it at least for tonight.
But as the sun rises outside the kitchen window, I can see that a new day is beginning. Will everything that we shared last night make it in the light of day? Will my heart stay open once she puts the ring back on? I’m afraid seeing her like this, in my shirt and in my kitchen, will haunt me for the rest of my life if she marries him.
Shane is talking to her now, and I stare out onto the pasture. An image of her in a white dress walking across that same field to where I’m waiting enters my mind. Then another one of my ring on her finger sparkling in the sunrise as she lies in my bed, skin against skin. I can almost taste the apple pie she feeds to our baby girl on a picnic blanket, years from now under the willow tree by the pond.
“Clay?”
The sound of Shane’s voice scatters the images like fireflies in late summer, and they disappear through my fingers. Suddenly I’m angry that it was only a dream and I toss the spatula in the sink a little too hard.
“You okay?” he asks, and I nod. “She’s good to go, but make sure she takes it easy for the next few days.”
“Okay,” I answer, not looking at him or Dotty. I’m too busy mourning the loss of something that was never mine.
After Shane talks to Dotty for a quick second, he grabs his bag and leaves. The kitchen that was once warm and filled with laughter is now cold and quiet. The sun is streaming in fully now, and I need to get out to the barn. I know I don’t have to be there, but being here might not be the right place either.
“Hey?” Dotty says softly, and I finally look over to where she’s sitting. “You going to feed me or not, big bear?” Her smile is soft and easy, and even though she can see I’m in a dark mood, somehow she pulls me out of it with just one look.
“You think you’re cute calling me that?” I grab her plate and silverware and bring it over to her.
“Mhh-hmm,” she mumbles around a bite of pancakes.
God, could she be any more beautiful? “You can call me whatever you want. Long as you keep talking to me.”
I nudge the syrup toward her, and she grabs it at the same time. Our fingers meet around the bottle, and for a moment we stay like that, our fingers entwined around the maple goodness and our eyes locked. I think about the hand I had on her stomach last night and how much I didn’t want to pull it away. What kind of spell have I been put under since I laid eyes on her?
“Clay,” she begins softly, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over how much I love the way she says my name. “I’m really glad I took the job here.”
Her thumb brushes over mine, and all I can do is swallow as I nod. I want to tell her that she’s somehow changed my life just by being here and that if there’s a chance she feels even a fraction of what I do, then she should let me have her. I want her to give me a chance to put a ring on her finger and see how that one fits. I know I can be better because she makes me want to be more than I ever have been.
When I open my mouth to tell her all of this, the phone between us rings. It’s my cell, and the number on the screen isn’t one I recognize.
“That’s Kat,” Dotty says, pulling her hand away.
The moment I’ve lost her touch I feel like I’ve lost a part of her, and I don’t want that to happen again.
She answers the phone, and I try not to listen as I clean up the kitchen. She worked so hard on it that I don’t want to mess it up again. A few times I hear her whisper and I wonder if it’s about me or about him. I don’t want to know, so I try to put it out of my mind.
“Everything okay?” I ask when she hangs up.