“You look amazing.”
“Tell your young gentleman to come in here so I can see you together,” Gran called.
“I feel like I’m going to prom,” he murmured.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“What for?” He took my elbow and grinned. “I just wish I’d brought a corsage.”
Gran clapped her hands again as we entered the kitchen. “Oh, what a fine-looking couple! I wish I could see straight so I could take a picture.”
“I can take one,” Nadine offered.
Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. He put his arm around my waist, and we both smiled.
“Now take one of us with Miss Addie,” he said.
“Oh, I’m better off behind the camera than in front of it,” Gran fussed, but she seemed pleased as we circled around the table and posed on either side of her.
“Thank you for being so sweet about all that,” I said once we’d escaped the house and gotten settled in his car.
“No problem,” he said, backing out of the drive. “Reminded me of my mom, insisting I bring my prom date by the house so she could see her.”
“Where are your parents?”
He shifted gears and pulled the car onto the street. “They lived in Houston. That’s where I grew up. Mom died of breast cancer while I was in college.”
My heart went out to him. “I’m sorry. That had to be rough.”
“Yeah, it was. Especially on Dad. They’d been married thirty-two years.”
“How is he now?”
“Great. He remarried a few years ago and lives in Australia.”
“Australia!”
Matt nodded. “My sister married an Aussie, and when Dad went to visit them, they introduced him to a widow at their church, and, well, the rest is history.”
“Do you see them often?”
“Not really—once a year or so. We Skype a lot, but Dad’s the quiet type. Never has much to say.”
“Are you and your sister close?”
“Yeah. She’s crazy about the girls. She and her husband have been trying to have kids for years, but so far, no luck. They’re thinking about adopting from Russia or China. I’ve been looking into the legalities for her.”
Matt was a real family man, I thought—the kind of guy whose roots ran deep, who knew the meaning of commitment. Too bad we were both on the rebound, headed in entirely different directions. I’d just accepted a fabulous job in Chicago, and he had a ways to go to get over his wife. If we’d met at another point in our lives, maybe...
He turned into the civic center parking lot, stopping my thoughts from jumping off a dangerous cliff. He parked the car, killed the engine, then drew a long breath.
“Dreading seeing Jillian?” I guessed.
He nodded.
“We could blow this off and go somewhere else,” I suggested.
“I thought about that, but I invited some friends to join us at the table.”
