Marie know who sent shivers down her spine just from the sound of his voice?
"I know what you must think of me, but I wanted a chance to explain."
She wasn't speaking, so he plowed right ahead. "I know what you walked in on looked bad, but it wasn't what you thought at all. Holy cow, Caroline's my boss!"
"How convenient."
"Oh, no. It's like that," David stuttered. "She was just giving me some advice."
Marie wasn't altogether sure she wanted to hear this.
"Look, David, the picnic was nice and all, but forgive me if I say I've already figured you out."
"Think what you will, Marie, but none of it's true. I mean, yeah, maybe once..." Did he need a speech therapist or what? He couldn't seem to get words out and have them make sense. David ran a hand along the damp back of his neck. Thirty-five degrees out and he was sweating!
"Marie, a lot has changed about me that you don't know. You don't know me at all, in fact."
She knew him well enough and intended to keep it that way. More than she'd realized at first, Cecil had left her in a fragile state. Now was no time to go getting mixed up with a handsome optician who left her unable to see straight.
"David," she said calmly. "It's late, I'm tired, and I'm afraid I'm all talked out."
"Well, that's too bad," David said, his scowl almost visible through the phone, "because talking's precisely what I had in mind. Fun talk. Nothing heavy. Just you and me, a cup of coffee somewhere. We could get to know each other a little better."
Marie's heart skipped a beat. Hadn't she just been thinking...? No, she told herself, violently shaking her head. She wouldn't fall for it.
"Besides, I've been reading something I think you'd really like."
"Oh?" she asked, her damnable interest piqued. If there was any way to get to a bookstore manager, it was by talking shop. "What is it?"
"Now that wouldn't be fair for me to give away all my conversation in advance, would it? Let's just say you and I might have a lot more in common than you seem to think."
Marie bit her bottom lip, telling herself not to buy it. Not to be hopeful, stupid—or both. "I don't know," she hedged.
"One hour, one cup of coffee is all I'm asking."
Well, she thought, fanning her romance book out on her chest with a sigh, what would one cup of coffee hurt? Even the fourteenth-century heroine of the book she was reading had decided to give her dastardly hero another chance.
"When and where?" she asked, sounding resigned.
The whole staff of Books & Bistro pressed their noses to the frosty glass and watched as David held his cell phone high above his head and did a celebration dance around the gravel parking lot.
And he didn't even care what they thought.
Chapter Seven
David pulled up to the small white house with the dormer windows and wicker porch swing, and smiled in reflection. Somehow it seemed just like her. All homespun and comfortable, but pretty and inviting. Its neat front walk was lined with tapered boxwoods, while the large red oak near the center of the yard filtered morning sunlight through its turning leaves. A vision of a tire swing hanging from one of the old oak's sturdy branches came to mind. But David quickly dismissed it and hurried up the steps to the house. He was ten minutes late already.
Marie checked her image in the hall mirror for what seemed like the hundredth time. If this was such a casual thing, then why did she feel like a schoolgirl about to entertain her first beau? She yanked the rubber band out of her hair, deciding the ponytail looked too perky. She was going to get better acquainted with David, not audition for the cheer-leading squad.
She adjusted the straps on her corduroy jumper, thinking maybe she'd tried too hard to look conservative. One of the sweater dresses would have been better. David had never been able to take his eyes off her when she'd been wearing one of those. Of course, David always seemed to check her out no matter what she was wearing, and in a strange way Marie found that extremely stimulating. No other man, including Paul, had seemed so totally smitten by her appeal.
The doorbell rang, nearly jolting her out of her shoes. She took a quick second look at the way her loose wavy hair fell about her shoulders, and decided it