“Same difference, Cherie. Why should a man treat his girlfriend any differently than he would his wife?”
Reese’s question gave her pause. “He shouldn’t.” He smiled, and it wasn’t the first time that Cherie noticed the length of his silky eyelashes.
“I’m glad you agree.” He sobered. “I remember my grandmother telling me that whenever you date a woman, you should always think of her as a potential wife. If she doesn’t fit that criteria, then don’t take up her time.”
“That’s good advice.”
“What about you, Cherie?”
“What about me, Reese?”
“Did you consider the men you dated potential husbands?”
Cherie looked out the side window that was fogging up from her warm breath. “There was only one man,” she admitted truthfully.
“What happened?”
She exhaled a soft sigh. “He married someone else.”
Reese chuckled. “Good for him.”
Cherie gasped, unable to believe Reese would say something so insensitive. “What a horrible thing to say.”
“No, it’s not, Cherie. Think about it, bae. If you’d married him, you wouldn’t have met Kayana and Leah. And you wouldn’t have come to vacation on Coates Island not once, but twice, and loved it so much that you decided to move here. And if you’d married your ex-boyfriend, I wouldn’t have been able to invite you to my home for Sunday dinner.”
She did not want to believe a man as attractive as Reese lacked for female company. “How many women have you invited to your home since your return?”
Reese’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and he decelerated as he drove onto the bridge. “Only one.”
“I’m the second?”
“No, Cherie. You’re the first.”
She slumped back against the leather seat. “Oh, I see.”
“Do you?” he asked.
Cherie’s eyelids fluttered. “Yes. Should I assume you want us to continue to see each other?”
“It’s called dating. And yes, I’d like to date you.”
She knew Reese was offering her something she’d never gotten from Weylin in all the years she’d known him. Even when they’d hung out together in high school and college, it was always in a group. They were actors, with roles in which they were able to give award-winning performances. No one, not even any of their classmates, had suspected they were sleeping together.
Cherie did not want to believe she’d had to wait until she was almost thirty-five to experience a normal relationship with a man where she didn’t have to meet him in secret. There were times when, after spending the night with Weylin, she’d felt dirty and ashamed, but not so much that she’d refused to see him whenever he contacted her. His cryptic emails were always followed up with a telephone call from a phone booth with instructions as to where they should meet.
“And I’d like to date you, too,” Cherie said after a comfortable silence.
“I’m glad we’re able to settle that.”
In that instant, Cherie felt as if she’d been reborn, that Reese was allowing her the opportunity for her to become whole again. It wasn’t until after she’d sold her son that she’d had an epiphany and knew she had to change her life. She had resisted the advances of men who expressed an interest in her, stopped joining her coworkers for Friday night happy hour, and stopped speaking to her neighbors. She had become not only withdrawn, but also angry and bitter. It had taken her driving from Connecticut to North Carolina to check into a boardinghouse on an idyllic island for the summer for her to realize she had to get away to begin the process of healing and repenting. Kayana and Leah were the integral pieces she’d been looking for to add to the puzzle of her transformation. She didn’t know how Reese would fit in her life, but she was open to finding out.
She smiled. “Me, too.”
Chapter 16
Reese felt the tension in his body ease as he tapped the remote device on the pickup’s visor to raise the garage door. The drive from Cherie’s house to his, which should’ve taken about ten minutes, because of weather conditions had taken twice that long. He hadn’t encountered a vehicle leading onto or off the bridge, and driving on the bridge was akin to attempting to walk on an ice-skating rink without skates. Once he entered the downtown business district, he noticed all the shops were closed and the only vehicles patrolling the streets were from the sheriff’s department. He was glad his next shift didn’t start until late Monday night, and he hoped weather conditions would improve by that time.
He maneuvered into the garage, parking next to a Lincoln Navigator. His grandfather had purchased the SUV when it debuted in 1998, and had kept the vehicle as pristine as when it’d rolled off the factory’s assembly line. Reese took it out several times a month and had it serviced regularly by a trusted mechanic.
