Could he regret not spending those days with her for the rest of his life?
Angelica heard the knock on the door as she was finishing making her sandwich. She went to the front door. Kirk stood there.
“Busy?” he asked.
She hadn’t seen him for a week and now he shows up as if yesterday was the last time he’d seen her.
“I’m fixing lunch.”
He stayed silent, looking at her intensely like he did. Her attraction for him had not diminished one iota during the absence. Her body seemed to sing now that he was here. His wide shoulders had her longing to reach out and drag him in. His slow smile had her insides doing flip-flops.
“Want to eat with me?” she said finally when he hadn’t broken the silence.
“Sure.”
He opened the screen door and stepped into the room. He seemed to crowd her even with a couple of feet of space between them.
Angelica spun around and hurried to the kitchen, glad for the task of making another sandwich to give her something to do.
“I’m surprised to see you,” she said as she placed the sandwiches on plates and put them on the table.
He sat and watched her.
“I’ve been working on a renovation the other side of town. And working on the carving.”
“How is that now?”
“Coming along. Want to come over and see it after lunch?”
“I could,” she said cautiously.
Once they began eating, she couldn’t let her curiosity stay quiet.
“Why are you here?”
“To see you.”
“I thought you told me to go home.”
He shrugged.
“You will after the festival. Until then, why not spend time together?”
She could think of a dozen reasons, the primary one being how she was falling in love with the man. She’d learned a lot these few weeks. She liked the people she met. She liked dealing with children. There were different ways to live from the way she lived.
Whether she’d want a permanent change was still up in the air. She didn’t dislike every part of her life in New York. Would she completely be accepted in Smoky Hollow, or was she here on sufferance because of Webb Francis and Kirk?
And in the greater scheme, hadn’t she come here to find out what a different way of life was like? How could she know if she didn’t take every opportunity offered?
Who knew? Maybe a miracle would happen and he’d fall in love with her and they’d share their lives together.
“Doing what?” she asked.
“I thought we could go into Bryceville later, have dinner at a great barbecue place I know and then see if there’s a movie in town we’d want to see.”
There was no skating around that. It was a date.
She nodded.
