A New Hope - Robyn Carr Page 0,25
can’t breathe. Or maybe on a sunny afternoon when I wonder if he’d be walking yet. Or in a store when I see something that would look so cute on him.” She took another sip of her wine. “Or maybe, take a look at me having dinner with a beautiful man I can never be more than friends with because my track record is...just...too much. I don’t even make sense to myself. What was I thinking?”
“You have to remember, my track record sucks, too,” he reminded her. “How long did it last? Your marriage?”
“About three years.”
He smiled. “I made it seven months. I didn’t fall for a singer but I did fall for the prettiest girl in the biology department. She was a part-time model. Completely self-absorbed. She thinks farming is inconvenient, dirty and boring. We have completely different values.”
“Maybe we should introduce her to Mick. He’s anything but boring.”
“Wait a second. Mick?”
“My ex. Mick Cantrell. His real name is Edward—he changed it to Mick because he thought it was sexier.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he asked. He dunked another chip. “I should’ve known better. Hell, she told me she didn’t want to be a farm wife.”
“And Mick told me being a husband and father wasn’t his scene.”
“I hope you’re not still in love with him,” Matt said.
“I don’t think I am. Not only wouldn’t I give him another chance, he doesn’t want one. But don’t give me any credit for being smart there—just look at what I put up with first. But you? Are you still...?”
He shrugged. It would be terrible to lie to her. “Some days,” he said. “When I have those days that I don’t understand why everything went to hell. My hours were terrible before we got married and I thought we were happy. She was the one who wanted to be married so bad it made her teeth ache. Why the hell would she marry me? I was the worst person for her to marry. And now she wants to have coffee. Or drinks. She wants us to be friends, to get over it, even try again...” He shook his head. “Aw, God, don’t tell Peyton that, please. I don’t want to talk about that with my family.”
“I’m not going to say anything to anyone about this conversation. But can I say one thing? It’s good to have someone like you to talk to.”
He reached for her hand. “We have some things in common. But Ginger, once we’ve gone over the details of all this crap in our rearview mirrors, we’re going to talk about other things.”
She squeezed his hand across the table. “Like what?”
“Like, can you still make little houses? Do you read anything I might like? Is there time in your life for adventure? Would you have a dog? Or a cat? Or a bird? Are you sensitive to insect bites?”
She laughed at his questions and the twinkle in her eyes was back that fast. “Do you have a dog?”
“We have working dogs, a bunch of ’em. I don’t even know how many. They’re mostly with George—they mind the sheep. There’s a golden and a black Lab around the orchard—they hunt and keep predators away from the chickens. There are no animals in the house.”
“Well, I want a dog in the house,” she said. “On the bed, in fact. And on the sofa! I want a good old happy dog who looks at me with sad loving eyes no matter how late I get home...”
“And dog hair in the soup.”
“And dog hair in the soup,” she agreed, laughing.
He lifted his beer. “You’re all right, Ginger,” he said before taking a drink.
The conversation blessedly turned from bad marriages and other catastrophes to family humor—what her brothers did to her miniature people and houses, what his sisters did to him. Peyton and Ginny were older and tried to dress up the little boys like dolls and make them play roles as their babies. He had her laughing hysterically at the tales of ten people and one bathroom. She told of the fun game her older brothers had of tossing her back and forth, until someone missed and she broke an arm. Matt told of numerous fractures on the farm, all from doing things they were forbidden to do, like swing on the rope in the barn from the loft to the ground.
They had each driven their own vehicles to the restaurant so that when Ginger went home Matt could just head north to his apartment. He walked