No. Don’t even think like that.
It wasn’t going to happen. I was going to be first lady someday. That was huge. I shouldn’t yearn for a little café of my own when the future held so much promise. I put it out of my mind and concentrated on cleaning up the mess I’d made.
“What are you doing in here?” my mom asked as she walked into the kitchen with a stack of magazines in her hands. I didn’t even have to see them to know exactly what they were.
“Just whipping up some brownies.”
She cringed, shaking her head. “Oh, good lord. Don’t leave them in the kitchen when you’re done. I just started a new diet and I don’t need your indulgent dessert to ruin it.”
Approaching the kitchen island, she placed the bridal magazines on the granite top. I swallowed hard as my heart dropped.
“I thought we could get started on the wedding planning!”
The excitement on her face made me feel like there was a weight on my chest.
“But, Mom, we haven’t even made the engagement official yet.”
“Well, I was talking to Emily this morning. We agreed that we should all get together tomorrow night to make the announcement.”
Emily was Hunter’s mother. The two of them were the real masterminds behind this union. I got the impression that our fathers went along with it just as we did.
“Tomorrow? So soon?”
“I can’t see any good reason to postpone it further. Can you?”
The image of Butch appeared in my mind, but I wasn’t about to tell her about him.
“No,” I said. “I really can’t.”
The oven timer went off, and I pulled the brownies out of the oven.
“I think the best place to start is the wedding dress. It’s going to take time to get that made and I was thinking next spring would be a great time to have the wedding.”
This was moving so fast. It suddenly felt soreal. I had the ridiculous urge to run away.
“Can we do this later? I have a meeting.”
“A meeting?” She looked at me disbelievingly. “With who?”
“I’m planning a fundraiser for the soup kitchen. I have to meet with the man helping me organize it in an hour.”
“Fine,” she sniffed, pulling out one of the magazines and flipping it open. “We’ll look at dresses until you have to leave.”
With a resigned sigh, I took a seat at the kitchen island with her, even though I knew the dress was going to end up just like the ring. Big, extravagant, and not my style at all.
* * *
I pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Dog an hour later. There weren’t many vehicles in the lot, but there were far more bikes than cars. I figured that was pretty par for the course with this place.
Butch wanted to meet at the bar today, which I decided was fair, since he’d come to my favorite coffee shop last time. I stepped out of the car with my computer bag in one hand and the other held a plate of brownies covered in plastic wrap.
When I walked into the bar, I immediately spotted Butch at a table with a man who had dark hair and a full sleeve of intricate tattoos. I headed his way, vaguely noting that there were only four other people in the bar, and they all seemed to have patches on their jackets, whether they were wearing them on their backs or had them draped over the back of their chair. Like Butch.
Without his jacket on, I could see how the sleeves of his plain, black T-shirt stretched over the bulge of his biceps. I’d never been with a man as strong as him, and he’d utilized that strength the night we were together, taking control and maneuvering my body in any way that he wanted. I loved that, the way he would flip my over or lift me up with those sinewy muscles.
God, I had to stop this. But attraction wasn’t something that was easily controlled.
The bar was different during the day, and not just because there were far fewer people. The sunlight streaming in through the windows gave the place a different atmosphere. Less intense. Without the glow of neon lights falling across everyone’s faces and the thumping of heavy bass music, this could have been a completely different place.
