The Mechanics of Mistletoe - Liz Isaacson Page 0,9

through her mind.

“Look, I have to just tell you something,” he said, employing his gruff voice. He could get through anything by using this voice. “I’ve wanted to go out with you for some time now.” He cleared his throat, her beauty too much for him to absorb and keep talking. He focused out the windshield instead. “And Evelyn Walker used to be a matchmaker. She’d create these perfect situations for men and women to meet, you know? So I asked her to help me.”

“Help you?”

“Yeah, help me. She called me earlier today when you showed up at Micah’s. That’s how I knew you were there.” He refrained from saying he’d practically run to the truck and driven over the speed limit to get to Seven Sons before he missed her. No need to throw himself further under the bus.

“Did she tell you to throw my tools all over?” Sammy asked, a definitely teasing quality in her voice.

“No, ma’am,” he said seriously. “That was just me bumbling around like a fool.” He glanced at her, but again couldn’t hold her gaze. “You make me kind of nervous.”

“I do?” She sounded completely surprised, and when Bear looked at her, those big eyes were round and shocked. “That’s just crazy.”

“Yeah, well, it’s true,” he muttered. He shouldn’t have said that, and Bear cursed himself for not taking Simone’s advice to just play things cool. The problem was, Bear didn’t know how to be cool. He seemed to run on laughter or frowns, and there was nothing in between.

She didn’t say anything else, and Bear kept a steady stream of self-talk going so he wouldn’t either. He really didn’t need to keep adding more humiliation on top of the humiliation he was already suffering under.

The buzzer went off, and Sammy jumped. “That’s us.”

“Yep.” Bear killed the engine and got out of the truck, realizing Sammy had too. He met her at the front saying, “I would’ve come to open your door.”

“It’s fine, Bear,” she said. “It’s sweet, really, but I can do it myself.”

Bear believed there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, so he just nodded. He didn’t make the move to hold her hand, and then he beat himself up for missing the opportunity while they sat down and started looking at the menu.

He didn’t particularly like The Library, but he was going to take that tidbit to the grave with him. “What do you like here?”

“The Shakespeare sandwich,” she said, not even bothering with the menu.

He tried to find it, as he liked sandwiches too. It was a hot sandwich, open-faced, with plenty of onion gravy. “Sounds good,” he said.

In the end, he decided on the steak and eggs, and when their waiter arrived, they ordered their food and drinks together. That done, and nothing to occupy his attention, Bear finally focused on the woman sitting across from him. He noticed she kept her hands in her lap, under the table, and he wondered what that was about.

“How’s the shop?” he asked.

“Good.” She nodded, and Bear might not have been on a date in a good, long while, but he knew nerves when he saw them. Confusion ran through him. She’d said it was okay to leave Lincoln at Seven Sons.

“How’s the ranch?” she asked.

“Busy,” he said. “And we desperately need you to come fix our tractor.” He looked at her hopefully, and she did smile.

“I don’t work weekends, Bear,” she said. “I spoiled you one time too many.”

“That was years ago,” he said, as she’d stopped working weekends when she’d gotten Lincoln. “You can bring Lincoln. I’ll take him to see the chickens, and he won’t even know what you’re doing in the warehouse.”

“You’d win more points with him if you took him to the goats,” she said.

“Okay, the goats.” Bear had plenty of those, as they kept his dormant fields down, and he got milk and meat from them every once in a while.

She didn’t commit, and Bear couldn’t think of anything else to say. Every minute seemed to take a year to tick by, and all the while he wondered why he’d asked Sammy to go to dinner with him if he couldn’t even have a normal conversation with her.

Chapter Four

Sammy slid out of Bear’s truck back at Seven Sons Ranch, her skin itching. She felt near the cusp of tears, and when Bear got out with her, that only made things worse.

“Do you know where they’d be?”

“Probably out on the ranch somewhere,” he said, shading his eyes though