There was something more in his gaze, but he refrained from saying whatever it was. Instead, he finally smiled and kissed me one more time. “Come on, let’s eat. I remembered you saying that you were craving a burrito, so I picked some up on my way back from visiting Brent in Helena this morning.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Trethan
Even though I normally just walked inside John and Vanessa’s home, I paused on the porch that evening and knocked heavily on the wood. John pulled open the door, looking appraisingly at me. Then, he nodded at the silent question and let me inside.
“How have you been?” he asked, looking as though he didn’t really know what to do.
I smiled nervously at him, also feeling kind of at a loss. It wasn’t every day that something this big happened. I shook my head. “I’ve been nervous, actually,” I admitted. “This is nothing like riding a bull.”
John laughed and shook his head as well. “I should hope not, given the tumble you took at the end of that rodeo,” he said. He frowned. “You’re fully healed up, though, from what I hear. Vanessa was overjoyed to tell me the news.”
“Yeah, the doctor cleared me yesterday,” I said. “Means I can get back to work soon. If you’ll have me back.”
John rolled his eyes. “Well, of course I’m going to have you back,” he said. “Don’t be an idiot. Place has been doing fine without you, but I have to face up to the fact that I’m getting older, and I can’t do everything on my own anymore. Vanessa’s been helping out, of course; but with her gallery project starting to take off, it’s perfect timing for you to come back and take over around here again.”
I smiled at him. “Good.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you here,” he said, his tone serious. “I’m, of course, proud of you for asking me, but you must have known what my feelings were before you asked.”
I ducked my head. “Yeah,” I agreed. “But you’ve been like a father to me all these years. I wouldn’t have felt right if I didn’t ask you.”
“I appreciate that,” John said. He glanced up the stairs as Vanessa came down them. “You’re looking pretty tonight,” he told his daughter.
And Vanessa was looking pretty that night. She had on a soft pink dress with a light blue cardigan, given that we were reaching the tail end of warm days for now. She had her hair pulled back in a somewhat messy braid. Her face was practically glowing.
“All right, enough secrecy,” she said, shaking her head and putting her hands on her hips. “Where exactly are you taking me tonight, mister?”
I shook my head. “It’s a secret; I told you that,” I said. “Come on.” I held out my arm to her. “I won’t keep her out too late,” I promised John, smirking at him.
“Good,” he said. There was something more to it than that, but the rest of his words went unspoken.
“Did you knock on the door before?” Vanessa asked as we walked onto the porch and down toward my truck. “You know you can just come inside. It’s not like you haven’t been here before.”
I smiled but didn’t answer her. We drove down to a cozy little seafood place on the lake that had just opened the previous week. “Oh, wow,” she said, looking around in surprise. “This place is nice.”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling as I led her along to our table, which was right out by the water.
“So, what’s the occasion?”
“Does there have to be an occasion?”
She shook her head. “I know you, Trethan. We don’t do places like this normally. If you were trying to be romantic, normally you’d just invite me over to your place and we’d order pizza and watch a movie. So, unless it’s some anniversary that I’ve forgotten about, what is it?”
I laughed. “I just wanted to enjoy a nice meal with you, that’s it,” I told her, even though that was far from being the case. “Come on, we’ve been dating again for a few months now, and I think that deserves a celebration.” I lowered my voice and leaned in. “And the sex yesterday was incredible, don’t you think?” I laughed at the way she blushed and looked around to see if anyone could have overheard that.
“It is kind of nice to do this sometimes,” Vanessa said, looking down at her menu, a smile on her face.
I smiled back at her and opened my own menu, scanning through the dishes for one which jumped out at me. I wasn’t much of a seafood person normally, but I had to admit that the views here were something else, and I had the whole night planned out ahead of us.
“So how are things really going with the gallery?” I asked Vanessa as we worked our way through a bottle of wine. “Come on, don’t spare any details. I want to hear all about the business that I’ve invested in.”
She laughed. “It’s going well,” she said. “I think I’ve narrowed down the list of people to the ones that I’d like to feature. We’re doing an emphasis on home for this first set of installations. I think it works well, me coming back to my hometown to start this gallery, all with local art. And home is such a personal concept, don’t you think? It’s been interesting going through the different submissions and figuring out which ones will work.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, smiling at her over the rim of my wine glass. I loved seeing how excited she got about the place and the artwork that she would fill it with.
“I’m done with the painting finally, too,” she continued. “And that means that the installations can start in the next couple days. I hope to have everything ready to open by the end of the month. Need to get on marketing it, though. Julie’s helping out by designing flyers and the website and everything else, but we need to drum up interest in the place. Its opening will coincide with the annual Autumn Arts and Wine Festival, though, so that should help draw some people to the place. Everyone loves free wine samples, don’t they?”