I stand in the doorway and watch Sophie charm Dr. Montgomery—or “Timothy,” to her. I hope my jaw isn’t on the hardwood floor, but I’m not sure.
How did the woman who fought me over a PayDay a couple of days ago turn into this?
I must have missed something, because when I look up, Dr. Montgomery is seated with a glass of wine. He looks more relaxed and at home in this space than I probably do, and I don’t quite know what to make of that.
“Would you like a glass of wine, love?” Sophie looks at me and tries to tame her smile. Her pet name throws me off, and she clearly delights in it. Her quiet, contained giggle is at my expense but music to my ears.
“I would love one,” I say.
She pulls out a chair across from Dr. Montgomery and hands me a glass of wine.
“This is a lovely place you have here,” Dr. Montgomery says. “There’s so much charm. You can feel the history. I bet that if walls could talk, this place would have stories for years.”
“My grandmother inherited the Honey House from her grandmother,” Sophie says, sitting to my right. “My great-grandfather kept honeybees. He had a locally famous beekeeping farm way back when.”
I walk around to the chair she’s standing in front of and pull it out for her. She seems surprised but covers her shock quickly.
“Thank you,” she says.
I sit at the remaining chair with a plate. “This looks amazing, Sophie.”
“Thank you. It’s nothing, really. Just some roasted chicken and vegetables. I threw in some biscuits and a salad to round it out.” She flashes me a nervous smile. “Now let’s eat before it gets cold.”
We begin to fill our plates with the aromatic contents of the dishes in front of us. It’s a comfortable silence interrupted only by the occasional ding from silverware hitting porcelain. The wind blows outside, and the Honey House creaks with it. It all works together to create a storybook-like environment that I think my potential employer might appreciate.
“So, Sophie. Tell me about your husband,” Dr. Montgomery says, spearing a piece of chicken. “What’s he like?”
Sophie sets her fork down beside her plate. Her gaze falls to mine. Her lashes flutter as she eyes me with mischief.
I can’t help but grin. She could roast me right now—carry on a spiel of things that are unflattering at best. But she won’t. She might have a bit of fun with this, but I trust her.
The realization that I do, on this level, in real time, is a wonderful thing.
“Well,” she says, “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with the good stuff,” I whisper loud enough for Dr. Montgomery to hear.
He laughs. “What made you decide to choose him?” He busies himself by smoothing a square of butter on a biscuit. “I often find that’s the best way to get to know the truth about a person—finding out why the ones closest to them choose to be with them.”
My stomach rumbles as I manage my breaths. I hope Sophie has something good, and false, to reply.
She sits tall, shoulders back, and looks right at Dr. Montgomery.
“When he asked me to marry him, I thought he was joking,” she says. “It was so out-of-the-blue and spontaneous that I contemplated that he’d lost his mind.”
“Oh no,” Dr. Montgomery says, lifting a brow.
Damn right, oh no.
“But the more I thought about it,” she says, “the more I realized that it was such a logical progression in our relationship. We’ve known each other for years. We got married once under a maple tree after a Wiffle Ball game when we were ten or eleven. So doing it again at this age didn’t seem all that crazy.”
Dr. Montgomery chuckles, but my heart squeezes at her words. She’s right. My proposal was a natural move because it solved a problem for each of us, but it was not because we were in love. And I’m sure that’s what the doctor thinks.
I watch Sophie’s profile and the way her little nose turns up at the end. The way the apples of her cheeks sit high, perched on the ends of her cheekbones. Her lips form the sweetest rose and beg for a kiss . . . from someone who loves her. Someone who would do for her so much better than me.
Her head turns and she faces me. Her eyes search mine with a concern and kindness that hits me in my already-sensitive heart.
“I could tell you that he worries obsessively about me locking the door or that he goes out of his way to take care of the little things that mean a lot to me,” she says, spinning her wedding ring around her finger. “He refuses to put me in a situation until he’s one hundred percent sure I want to be there, and if he gets any inclination I’m uncomfortable or worried, he stops what he’s doing and asks me to talk about it. He gets . . . creative when I have a problem to solve with my business.”