“Oscar would kill something like that inside three minutes, but I thought, being tiny, Moxie might make it last a bit longer.”
“She’s gonna love it.” Misty snagged the glass of wine he’d poured her and sniffed. “And I’m gonna love this. Thank you.”
“I wasn’t sure if you would. You generally don’t drink when you come into the tavern.”
She went brows up. “Been watching me, Denver?”
Of course he had. How could he not? But saying so could tread perilously close to sounding creepy, and he still wasn’t sure where they stood. “Occupational hazard and a small town. I tend to know who drinks, who doesn’t, and what they prefer.”
She angled her head in acknowledgment. “Makes sense. I know the same thing about people and flowers. To answer the question you’re very politely not asking, I never drink if I’m going to be driving. So, unless I’m home or out with my girlfriends and one of them is driving, I don’t indulge.”
“Sensible.”
They carried the wine outside, and once she’d put the kebabs on the grill, they settled into the chairs with their wine.
Misty curled her feet beneath her skirt. “So where exactly are you from, Denver? Not here. There’s not a trace of southern to that accent.”
“Lake Tahoe. Though I had a grandmother from Georgia.”
“You’re a long, long way from home.”
He sipped at his wine. “It hasn’t been home for a number of years.”
“So how’d you end up here?”
Being a bartender, Denver was used to hearing other people’s stories, not sharing his own. He didn’t like revealing much of himself. But he could give her a piece without getting into the whole sorry mess. “From the time I was a little kid, my dad and I planned to take a big ass road trip around the country. We mapped the entire route, all the best motorcycle roads.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It would’ve been.” Denver’s throat went thick, so he drank more wine. “He died before we could take it.”
Sympathy flashed across her face. “I’m so sorry.”
Twitching his shoulders, he tried to shrug off the haze of grief. “After he was—after, I set out on my own. Roxanne got a flat just outside town here, and I had to order a new tire. Picked up a few shifts at the tavern, while I was waiting. I liked the look of the place—the bar and the town—so I stayed.”
“Simple as that?”
“Is your story more complicated?”
Something flickered over her face as she considered the question. “Not so much. I finally left a shitty job, and I wanted a real change. A friend of mine gave me a gift—this blown glass globe—I have it hanging in the living room, actually—a gorgeous piece. It seemed like there was a different world contained in this thin shell of glass, colors and shapes, maybe like a better world, waiting to be born.” A light laugh and a wave of her hand wiped away the dreamy look that had settled on her face. “The piece always fascinated me, so I tracked own the artist—Hale Copeland, maybe you know him—here in Eden’s Ridge. I came. I saw. I decided to stay and open my shop. It was about as far from where I was before as I could get.”
“And where was said shitty job?”
“Kansas City.” That cloud of…something…flickered in her eyes again. “I like to keep my distance from that time and place.”
“Fair enough.” God knew, Denver understood that sentiment. He sipped his wine and met her gaze. “I’m more interested in the now anyway.”
The moment caught and held, drawing out until neither of them could mistake his meaning. Then she smiled into her glass. “Now’s looking pretty good to me, too.”
~*~
Two weeks, three lunches, a breakfast, two dinners/playdates for Moxie and Oscar, and a handful of random stop-ins on both sides were more than enough to link Misty’s name with Denver’s in the local gossip pool. Just that morning, Essie Vaughn, sniffer outer of all brewing romances in Eden’s Ridge, had been in Moonbeams and Sweet Dreams asking for confirmation that they were dating. Misty hadn’t known what to say because Denver hadn’t made a single move. She knew she hadn’t misinterpreted things that first night at dinner. The man was interested. But he hadn’t acted on it, and she couldn’t figure out why. This was not a friend thing they had going on here. Well, they were becoming friends, certainly. She now knew he’d played in a rock band in college, that he was a closet Star Trek fan, and that he had as big a sweet tooth for chocolate as she did. But that wasn’t the only thing between them. So what was the holdup?
At least she’d finally wrangled an invitation to see his workshop. They’d finished dinner—pizza from the tavern—and after a romp in the backyard, Oscar had curled up on his dog bed, and Moxie had curled up on Oscar’s outstretched front legs. They were sound asleep.
“I think we have a bit of a May-December romance going on here,” Misty observed.
“A what now?”