last sentence hang in the air for so long, but at the sound of those words, Justine feared that’s exactly what the guy would think. He’d never met her before today; for all he knew, she was crazy.
The knots in her gut twisted. A flash of heat rushed up her neck.
“My granddad, you met him, he turned into some…chronic matchmaker. Not for everyone though. Just me. He’s been pushing the issue since my grandma passed almost two years ago.”
Burke acknowledged her loss with a subtle nod. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. Anyway, the point is, he became hyper focused on it.”
“He’s probably just worried about you,” Burke said. The nonchalant delivery of that comment made Justine pause.
“Worried about what?”
“Well, the man knows he can’t live forever. My guess is, he’d like to see you married before he’s gone.”
A hint of sadness sank into her heart. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.”
“And if his wife died not too long ago, he might be realizing how much lonelier life is without a partner.”
“Huh.” She let that sink if for a minute. “That makes sense.” She was losing her entire case and she hadn’t even started. Come on, you had your reasons for putting a stop to it—think.
“So he was playing matchmaker,” Burke encouraged, “to mainly you.”
“Right.” She nodded, setting her thoughts on the events that led to her desperation. The moment that compelled such rash action that it had dug and then buried her in a hole she didn’t know how to climb out of.
“To help you understand how I became so desperate, I’ve got to tell you that—”
“Wait,” he interjected. “Can you just tell me this before you go on—is there or is there not an actual fiancé?”
Justine felt an odd flutter in her chest at his question. She looked over as he shot her a glance, and detected something wonderfully close to jealousy. She fought back a grin. “There’s no fiancé.”
Burke let out an exaggerated sigh. “Good.”
Now the grin won out. “Okay, so he’s getting old, you know? My granddad. And though he’s still pretty sharp in a lot of ways, he’s also losing degrees of…social awareness maybe. Or he’s just stopped caring about social grace altogether. Who knows?
“But already he was pestering me about dating and finding the one and telling me that I needed to make it a priority. And when that didn’t work, he switched tactics and started bringing men to our Sunday dinners or telling them where they could ‘bump into me’ if they wanted to ask me out.”
Burke ran a hand along the back of his neck and groaned. “Men in town?”
“He’d already exhausted the options here and moved onto random guys passing through town. It was horrible.”
“I’m assuming you told him to stop at some point,” Burke guessed. He slowed as a family of deer wandered close to the roadside, just within reach of the headlights.
“Definitely.” Justine kept her eyes set on the small animals, relief washing through her as they passed. “I told him nicely, then not so nicely. And he sort of laid off for a while. But then I show up to Sunday dinner—we switch off each week between his place and mine—and he’s got an extra plate set up. Told me it was a man he’d bumped into at the gas station, the two got talking, and he was a very nice man close to my age who lived just three cities east of us—”
Burke groaned. “Oh, man…”
“I know. So I just lost it inside. I knew that if I wasn’t careful, I’d say something horrible that I’d probably regret, so I came up with a lie and told him I was engaged.”
A deep, raspy chuckle sounded low in Burke’s throat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh.”
“No,” Justine said with a giggle of her own. “It’s comedic, I’m sure. If you’re not me.” She laughed some more. “And even a little funny if you are, I guess.” She gave into a moment as the two laughed some more, warmed by the camaraderie. It felt nice to finally confide in someone besides Becky at the checkout.
“What did he say?”
“He went silent for, like, three whole minutes while sorting through it in his mind. It’s like his expression shifted in stages. Obvious ones. The first was disappointment. He liked this guy and he didn’t like hearing that there was no chance. But then he got kind of pleased, like, what am I unhappy about? This is what I wanted? It was all very satisfying until the final