Karl looked guiltily toward the other patrons—there were only a couple up this early—and shook his head. “I don’t know if I need a big breakfast. I’m still pretty full from dinner last night, and I’d feel bad getting a hot breakfast if everybody else didn’t.”
“Oh, they would,” she promised. “I’m not really playing favorites.”
“Oh.” Karl smiled at her sheepishly. “Darn. I kind of liked the idea I was getting preferential treatment. Look, I hope I didn’t keep you out too late, if you had to be up this morning for work.”
She wrinkled her nose like she’d done the night before, and Karl thought, again, that it was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. He wanted to kiss that wrinkly nose affectionately, and then kiss Emmy…well, affectionately, but also passionately and enthusiastically.
“I don’t really have to be up at all,” she admitted, pink coloring her cheeks. “My sister is on breakfast duty this week. But I hoped I might see you if I got up, so…”
“Really?” Karl sounded like a kid, his voice cracking on the word, but he didn’t care. “That’s great. I wanted to see you too. So does that mean you’re not working today?”
“I may have taken the day off so I could take you to lunch at Kate’s,” Emmy admitted. “And you said you had a plan?”
“I do. A secret plan, if you’ll let me keep secrets.”
“Oh! Your plan involves me?” Emmy sat down, smiling. “Okay, Mr. Secretive. What’s the plan?”
Karl raised his eyebrows. “It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, would it? But it does involve a car. Is there somewhere around here I can rent one?”
“Oh.” Emmy’s eyes widened. “No, we don’t even have a new car dealership. Virtue kind of likes to stay off the map.”
“I think if I was Virtue I’d want to stay off the map, too. It seems kind of idyllic. That would be easy to spoil.”
“It’s idyllic with…quirks.” A funny note came into Emmy’s voice, although she brushed it away when he frowned curiously at her. She added, “I have a car, though. Well, it’s the business’s car, but I can borrow it. We don’t have anybody to pick up at the bus station or airport today. Or most days. People usually drive in, if they’re coming from out of town. You’re an outlier.”
“It’s a little out of the way,” Karl admitted. “Probably not a lot of through-hikers here. Well, would you like to go for a drive with me this morning, then? And I guess I probably mean ‘want to drive me somewhere?,’ since I bet your business car isn’t insured for randos driving it around Virtue.”
“I’d love to drive you around Virtue.” Emmy smiled at him. “Where are we going?”
“Out to a cow pasture where a rabbit rescued me yesterday.”
The startled laugh Emmy gave was far beyond anything Karl expected. “No, I’m serious! I know it sounds ridiculous, but there was thishugefluffy bunny in a no-kill trap yesterday. I got her out and we went our separate ways, but then I was crossing a field toward Virtue and got caught between some cows and their babies, and the bunny reappeared and got their attention and they all ran off after her! She rescued me!”
Emmy’s eyes brightened until he thought she was going to cry, and her mouth worked like she wanted to say something but didn’t know what. She glanced around the breakfast room, then returned her gaze to him, obviously chewing the inside of her cheek.
Karl groaned. “You think I’m a huge idiot, don’t you. I mean, I hear what I’m saying, I sound like an idiot, but I swear it’s true.”
“I really don’t think you’re an idiot,” Emmy said, still bright-eyed. “Your rabbit rescuer sounds wonderful.”
“You should have seen her. Really just the most enormous bunny imaginable. I loved her. Anyway, I wanted to go see if I could find her again, but even if I can’t, there’s something out that way I’d like to show you. But I can’t tell you what until we get there. It’s a secret.”
“I don’t know how anybody who just came to Virtue could know a secret about it that I don’t, but okay.” Emmy lifted a foot and wiggled it, showing off her knee-high boots. Karl, following the line of the top up to the ample dimple of her knee, swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on what she was saying, which was, “I assume I should put on hiking boots. Or at least tennies. I don’t actually own hiking boots. That would imply I hiked.”
“I think those would probably be fine,” Karl said a little dazedly. He thought those boots would be fine for aaaaaanything. Then he shook himself, trying to remember he was a decent person who saw Emilia Jones as more than the most wildly attractive woman he’d ever laid eyes on and who was capable of thinking about something other than how very, very much he wanted to hitch that skirt of hers up and—“They’re flats!” he blurted, trying to keep himself on topic. “They’re flats, and I’m not planning to take you up Mount Marcy, so it should be fine.”
Emmy’s eyebrows rose quizzically. “I hope not. That’s on the other side of the state. And also way beyond my hiking skills! What time do you want to leave?”
Karl, determined to act like a nice normal person and not a hopeless horndog, smiled. “Well, we have to be back here by one at the latest, right? So we can have lunch and the world’s best carrot cake?”
“Right, although I’m afraid it may pale in comparison to that brownie feast Charlee whipped up for us last night.”
“It’ll just be a different kind of culinary experience,” Karl said as snootily as he could. Emmy laughed, which was the goal, and he added, “I don’t really think it’ll take more than about ninety minutes. It’s not that far out of town, or a very long hike.”
Emmy made a show of looking at her wrist, which did not have a watch on it, but he got the point, especially when she said, “It’s barely eight a.m. now, so whether we head out immediately or wait until later, I’m going to have to come up with some way to entertain you forhoursbefore lunch.”
If he didn’t feel the heat of his own blush, Karl would be certain all the blood in his body had rushed far, far away from his face. He hoped Emmy wouldn’t think he was a cad as he croaked, “I bet we could think of a few things.”
She opened her eyes very widely, very innocently. Those huge dark eyes of hers portrayed ‘innocent’ incredibly well, and the unstudied way she wet her pink lipshadto be contrived, because…because it had to be, Karl thought desperately. She couldn’t be seizing him by the heart—and other parts—through genuine guilelessness. Probably. Especially when she said, “What kinds of things?” in the most absurdly breathy little voice, like she only had the faintest idea what he might be suggesting, but was excited by those nebulous expectations.
