lower cabinets. One day, you’ll have kids with sticky fingers, and you won’t have to follow them around with a sponge to clean every surface all the time.”
“Kids?” I asked.
She finally looked at me and her grin cooled some. “I imagine you’ll have kids soon enough.”
“You will too. I’m sure Evan wants a big family.”
Her gaze landed on her ring finger where one hell of an engagement rock sat. I’d noticed it before. Her change in behavior had me thinking about it more.
She didn’t answer my question. “Is that all? I’m sure you have plenty of other things to do.”
I couldn’t leave it alone. “Have I done something wrong?”
“Wrong? No. You’re just you.” I didn’t like the look on her face.
“And that’s apparently a bad thing. I won’t bother you.”
I shoved the wood panels back into the bag. When I picked up the backsplash tile, she said, “One more thing. I think if you have lower blue cabinets, you’d be better off with a white or grey backsplash or not all blue. It might be too much.” She grabbed the sample of the quartz for the countertop. “If you are using this, I’d say go with white, but if you don’t want that much white, definitely a light color like grey.”
“Thanks.” I plucked the stone from her hand. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Aiden,” she said.
I smiled or as much as one as I could and left before she could say more. Time for plan B.
Chapter 11
Emma
The door shut with a finality I hadn’t expected. I dialed Jessie straight away.
“Hey girl,” Jessie said.
“I did something really stupid,” I admitted.
“Oh no, what’d you do?”
“I went over to Aiden’s house uninvited to bring him chili I made.”
“Uh huh, sounds diabolical.”
“This is serious,” I complained.
“Okay, I’ll be serious.”
“He wasn’t alone.”
“Now you have my attention. Who was he with?”
“Take a guess,” I said.
“Come on. I have no idea—Darcy.”
“Exactly.”
“She didn’t waste time. But I thought she was messing around with the mayor.”
“Trust me. If she is, she’s messing around with Aiden too.”
“Okay. Now hit me with what you did. Did you bang on the door?” she giggled.
“No. I left. Went to see you.”
“Is that why you came by?”
“What? Can I not come to see you anymore now that you’re shacked up with the doc?” I jokingly whined.
“You know what I mean.”
“I know. I’m feeling pissy. Since doc hottie was there waiting for you, I ended up hanging out with Alana. She wasn’t surprised Aiden was with Darcy either... Anyway, he just stopped by the bar, wanting my opinion on a color scheme for his kitchen and I was such as bitch to him. I don’t even know why.”
“You’re half in love with him, that’s why. Not that I can blame you. He’s aged really well.”
“I’m engaged.”
“Are you really? I didn’t know that. I must have been blinded by that rock on your finger,” she teased.
“Come on, Jessie. I need some advice.”
“Pick one. That’s my advice.”
“You’ve met them both.”
“Evan was cool the few times we hung out. He could have been on his best behavior though.”
“For all I know, Aiden’s not into me or he’s not available. We haven’t really had that conversation.”
“I doubt that man is a monk, let me tell you.”
“Not helping,” I said.
“I can’t choose for you. We can talk this through to help you answer that for yourself.”
“Okay, hit me.”
“I would, but we are on the phone. Maybe a good slap might help,” she joked.
I laughed which was what she was aiming for. “Give it to me.”
“Here are some thinking points. With Evan you’ll have a cushy life, but not here. Evan isn’t a small town guy. You marry him. You say goodbye to Mason Creek forever.”
“Forever?”
“Forever. He’ll claim there’s nothing here to hold you back.”
“My dad,” I said quietly.
“I’m not saying you won’t visit because I’ll kick your ass if you don’t. But it won’t be the same.”
I hated to agree, but I could see where she was going with it.
She continued, “And assuming you and Aiden had a thing, you know you’ll have a nice little life here. He’s not leaving. The man already did that and came back. He’s made his choice.”
“And I wanted to leave,” I said, like that was a fact and I wasn’t so sure anymore.
“Exactly. You’ve talked a lot about leaving. That doesn’t mean you have to leave with Evan. There are plenty of men in the world. However, you aren’t leaving with Aiden. I hope that clears things up.”
“It does actually. I think it’s time for