had been off-kilter. “Thanks, but that’s not necessary.” She’d stared at him a little too long, fighting the feeling that her grandmother somehow had a hand in this meeting.
“It’s not necessary.” Randy had grinned and gone from handsome to hunky. “But what is necessary is a drink and a sympathetic ear for your problems.”
He’d been such a good listener. After that, they’d spent every waking, nonworking moment together for a week.
He’d rolled over in bed one morning and whispered in Lola’s ear, “Wouldn’t it be great to wake up like this every day?”
She’d squealed her acceptance: “Yes!”
Two weeks later, they were married, and she’d moved to Sunshine.
Lola dropped her forehead to the table. “He didn’t even propose.” Not with the right question.
“Hey, now.” Drew patted the table near her head, most likely so he could snatch another fry. “Randy could have backed out at any time.”
“Being left at the altar would’ve been preferable to this.” She’d still have a job on Broadway. She’d still have her self-respect.
Drew didn’t immediately reply.
Lola lifted her head to look at her dinner partner.
He was chewing. Chewing!
“My life is flaming out, and you’ve got nothing to say? Nothing?”
“I’m hungry.” Drew didn’t flinch from her incredulity. “The food is hot. And you don’t want my advice anyway.”
Her life was in ruins, and the man who’d bought her for a date—marked down—thought it was more important to eat his burger than to offer her sympathy or advice? Lola wanted to kick him in the shins. And she might have if she hadn’t been wearing open-toed sandals. As it was, her foot kicked out, completely of its own accord, and brushed Drew’s firm thigh.
He stopped chewing. “Are you…Was that…”
“That was an accident.” Lola placed both feet solidly on the floor, wishing she could disappear.
There was heat in his gaze. And amusement. “Nervous twitch?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you want to know what I think?”
“Not really.” Not anymore. She eyed the door.
He waved aside her remark and delivered his opinion in the same tone of voice a doctor used to deliver bad news. “I think Randy loved you.”
“Really?” A tiny spark of hope ignited in her chest.
“Yes.” He wiped his hands on a napkin and looked her in the eye with that detached cop expression of his when she much preferred howdy-do heat. “I just don’t think it was the passionate I’m-gonna-die-without-you kind of love.”
The horrible truth of that statement belly flopped in her stomach.
“My grandmother was wrong,” Lola said after a moment. Her hopes, her dreams, the scrapbook. She never should’ve believed Nana. “There are no happily-ever-afters.”
Drew stopped tucking a tomato back into his burger. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” There was so much fragile hope in those two quiet words that Lola almost wanted to snatch them back.
Someone bid an exorbitant amount for Avery. Then the bidding stopped, and the auction was called to a close.
“Just…don’t say there’s no happy endings.” Drew had that look men got on their faces when they found themselves unexpectedly talking about feelings with a woman. The same back-against-the-wall look Randy had had on his face the day he’d agreed to marry her. “I’m probably wrong. My sisters claim I know nothing about life. Or love.”
There was something about buttoned-up Sheriff Drew Taylor fumbling around in a conversation about love that almost had Lola smiling.
“But maybe…” Drew was fixing his drippy burger and not paying attention to Lola. “Maybe you were the other woman. Maybe you’re the one who stole him away.”
The anger that had led her to burn Randy’s underwear reared its fire-spitting head. “If that were true, wouldn’t there be an ex-girlfriend around?” A woman the townspeople liked more than Lola? She lifted her chin and stared down her nose at Drew.
He shrugged. Shrugged!
“Sheriff.” It was Mims who spoke, but the Widows Club board trailed behind her. “It looks like Lola’s ready to go home.”
Lola smiled fondly at the widowed sisterhood.
“Come along, hon.” Bitsy, whose black dress was vintage eighties A-line with a set of those shoulder pads she was so fond of, gently drew Lola from the booth.
Lola didn’t need to be asked twice to leave. She scooted to the edge of the seat. She’d ridden with Avery, who was seated on the other side of the room with a man Lola didn’t recognize. Her date was just starting. “Don’t you need to stick around for the auction’s after-party?” she asked the board.
“Nope.” Clarice leaned on the table and raised her voice to be heard over the crowd. “We’ve collected our money,