Take the Chance (Top Shelf Romance #9) - Brittainy Cherry Page 0,254

chair. Now I simply had to keep it casual. Light. No touching. “No one’s sitting here. If you’re not still mad at me, you can sit.”

Laughing, she slid onto the seat and set her purse at her feet. “I’m not mad. You apologized. We can be friends.”

“Friends, huh?” I side-eyed her. “I don’t know if I can be friends with a city girl.”

She smiled. “If I can be friends with a cocky, know-it-all farmer like you, you can handle a sweet little city girl like me.”

“Sweet—ha.” I took a long pull on my beer, and damn if she didn’t stare at my mouth the entire time.

“Can I get you something?” the bartender asked her.

“Uh.” Her cheeks grew a little pink as she realized what she’d been doing. “Can I see a wine list? And a menu?”

While she chose a drink and some food, I studied her covertly. She wore the sandals from last night, this time with pink shorts that made her legs look even longer, and a white blouse. Her hair was loose and wavy around her shoulders, and I had to stop myself from leaning over to smell it.

“Have you eaten already?” she asked me.

“Yeah. Earlier at home. I just came up here to get out of the house a little. Every now and then I have to remind myself to do it.”

She nodded. “I get that.”

“You live alone?” I asked her, feeling braver since her departure was imminent. No harm in getting to know her a little better at this point, right?

“Yes.” She swirled her wine around in her glass. “But my family lives close. Not as close as yours,” she said, grinning, “but close.”

“They do live close—too close sometimes.” I grimaced and lifted my beer again. “But I love having my nephew there. He’s so fucking cute. I took him to the park today.”

She placed a hand over her heart. “Awww. Did you?”

“Yeah, he loves the park. He never wants to leave.”

“So cute. And you’re so good with him—I heard you have the magic touch.”

Our eyes met. “The magic touch, huh?”

The blush in her cheeks deepened.

I looked at her lips, and my thoughts strayed into dangerous territory. It would be so easy to kiss her right now. So easy. My entire body tightened up, and I gripped the beer bottle tight.

I couldn’t. We were in public, this was a small town, and rumors would fly. They’d probably fly already, just because we were sitting together. I tossed back the rest of my beer, the moment passed, and she cleared her throat before taking a sip of wine.

Just talk to her, asshole. “You’ll be glad to know I apologized to Pete and Georgia. Told them I’d be willing to consider their ideas. Your ideas.”

She gasped as she set her glass down. “Did you really? That’s great—I bet they were so happy.”

“They were.”

Her head tilted. “Can I ask about the change of heart?”

I took some time with my reply. “I did a lot of thinking last night. Some of the things you said sort of sank in.”

“Really?” She sat up taller, her face lighting up. “What did I say?”

“You said something about changes making people happy, and I realized I didn’t want to be responsible for standing in the way of their dreams.” I studied the label on my empty beer bottle. “And I thought about what Steph would do if she were in my place.”

“Oh.”

I kept my focus on the bottle in my hand, tilting it this way and that. “I know she’d support them. She was completely unselfish.”

Margot took another drink of wine and said, “Tell me more about her.”

I blinked at her. Seriously? She wanted to hear about my late wife? Not only did it seem strange in light of what we’d done last night, but no one ever asked me about Steph. “What do you want to know?”

Margot shrugged and smiled. “Anything. I know she was short and cute and loved her boots, but what was she like?”

Exhaling, I tried to come up with words that would do her justice. “Feisty. Energetic. So damn smart. She was accepted at three different medical schools. Granted scholarships at all of them.”

“Wow! I didn’t realize she was a doctor.”

“She wasn’t. She didn’t go to med school, said she’d changed her mind.” Which her parents had always blamed on me, even if they never said it outright.

She drank again. “Tell me more.”

“She was stubborn as hell. Once she made up her mind about something, she never wavered. None