"Carrot cake," her best friend said fondly. "Go to the new gastropub instead. He'll love it, and that way you can arrange a second date for lunch tomorrow."
"Oh, cunning! You aremuchbetter at dating than I am. Okay. I'm gone! Bye!"
"Bye have fun bye!" Donna hung up, and Emmy, bouncing with excitement, went to change clothes.
CHAPTER4
Karl meant to take the world's fastest shower, but the water pressure was even better than he hoped. His shoulders didn't exactly hurt from hauling a backpack 3000 miles, but the hot water massaged a pervasive dull ache away, and he stood beneath the pounding stream longer than he meant to, unable to remember if he'd already washed his hair. He did it again, just in case. It wouldn't hurt, anyway. The last thing he wanted was to be in any way grimy for his date with Emilia Jones.
Thinking about her brought a little grin to his lips. He'd barely spoken to the woman, but he'd never felt so twitterpated. Karl didn't exactly believe in love at first sight, but the gorgeous B&B owner might just change his mind. She was so cute. So soft-looking. So round and delicious. So kissable, with such an obvious sense of humour sparkling in her big dark eyes, and so clearly in tune with his own fandoms. Literature! Musicals! If she liked Monty Python, Karl told himself, he would propose immediately.
And then he would take her to their wedding bed, and worship every fold and curve of her beautiful self.
Karl groaned and turned the water to cold for a minute, afraid he'd never get out of the shower otherwise. Not if he kept thinking about Emilia, anyway.Emmy,she'd said. "You are not marrying a woman you met five minutes ago," he told himself as the cold water drove him out of the shower.
He'd been talking to himself the whole walk across America, but the judgy commentary he'd been tossing at himself had nothing disagreeable to say about the idea of marrying Emilia Jones. His mom would have saidif you know, you know, and he would have told her that was crazy, but right now it didn't seem so crazy.
Standing under cold water, however, seemed plenty crazy. Karl got out, dried off, found some clean (if wrinkly) clothes from his backpack, and took the stairs down two steps at a time, ridiculously eager to see Emmy again.
She had undergone a transformation in the time he'd been upstairs. She'd swept all that thick dark brown hair into a twist that left artful pieces falling around her face and exposing a whole row of piercings in her left ear. The right only had one. Karl thought she'd put makeup on, because her huge gorgeous dark eyes were somehow even larger and darker, and her sweet mouth was even more softly pink than before. And she wore a different dress now, warm enough for the changeable spring weather in upstate New York, but also flowing and green and summer-like.
Karl thought he probably didn't need to wait to find out whether she liked Monty Python to propose.
"I'm sorry," he said from the bottom of the stairs, then cleared his throat, trying to bring his voice back to his normal register, instead of it scraping the bottom of his…soul. It was his soul that was moved by Emmy's beauty, not…other parts. Other less romantic parts. Other less romantic, very enthusiastic parts.
There was no polite way to adjust himself in public, so Karl just had to hope the hem of his untucked shirt would hide evidence of his all-too-vivid attraction to the B&B proprietor.
Especially since there was someone else in the room. An older man, balding, but with Emmy's round face, bright smile and dark brown eyes. Emmy came out from behind the B&B's reception desk, smiling. "There you are! This is my father, Pete. He said he'd cover for me while we went out to dinner. Dad, this is Karl, aka 'Hiking.'"
"Mr. Jones." Karl managed not to croak the words, but he had a hard time even glancing at Emmy's father. Her dress stopped just above the knee, and he caught a glimpse of—there was probably a good name for them, some secret name that all women knew and men didn't—but something like biking shorts, anyway, thin spandex that probably kept Emmy's magnificently thick thighs from rubbing together. He'd always thought women who wore those instead of nylons were insanely hot.
She was also definitely wearing heels, the kind with platform soles as well as a lifted heel, so she reallywasshort, and had the most terrifically shaped legs. The woman was an embarrassment of physical riches, and Karl was on the verge of absolutely embarrassing himself because of her. "I, uh, I didn't iron my, I should go upstairs and iron my clothes, you look incredible and I'm going to look like Ed Sheehan with Beyonce."
Emmy laughed. "Thank you. You're fine, though. You did just hike into town, which I'm sure at least three hundred people here already know. Small town," she added with the most adorable nose-wrinkle he'd ever seen in his life. "Everybody knows everybody's business. And I'm an idiot."
"You are not!" Karl said hotly. "You're perfect. If anybody's an idiot, it's me." After a heartbeat, and especially after Mr. Jones's look of amusement, he thought maybe he'd overplayed his hand a bit, and mumbled, "Um, why are you an idiot? Not that you are!"
"Because Kate's is only a lunchtime cafe," Emmy said mournfully. "No carrot cake right now. But there's a new gastropub in town and it's incredible. We could go there instead?"
"I passed it on my way into town. It smelled so good I thought I might go offer my services as a dishwasher just to be allowed inside." To his embarrassment, Karl's stomach rumbled. Emmy's father grinned again.
"They'll let you in." Emmy winked. "I mean, only because you're with me, of course. A local. But whatever works, right?"
"I'll go anywhere you want me to," Karl promised.
Her father coughed, obviously trying to cover a laugh. Emmy gave him a silencing, bug-eyed look so adorable that Karl wanted to hug her, and her father coughed again. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Sutton. Welcome to Virtue. I'll close up tonight, Em. Have fun, sweetie."
"Thanks, Daddy." Emilia kissed her dad's cheek and swayed her way to the door while Karl tried not to look like he was too obviously gaping. The green dress swung around her hips beautifully. Karl wanted to put his hands on the fabric and follow its flow.
Instead, he jolted into action and caught up with Emmy in time to open the door for her. She smiled, murmured, "Thanks," and went out a step or two ahead of him.
The day had cooled down quite a bit in the past hour, but pale spring sunshine spilled over the town square, turning giant Easter eggs gold and pink with the first touches of sunset. Karl couldn't help grinning at all the holiday decorations, including an Easter basket that had to stand at least seven feet high. There were pastel-coloured, triangle-shaped flags dancing on tall poles around the basket, and glittering helium balloons tied firmly to its handle. "This town is not what I imagined it would be."
"We really go all-out for holidays here," Emmy said with a rueful smile. "There's not much else going on, so we lean into it. Ack!" She flinched as a breeze snapped the flags in surprisingly loud unison. Karl thought she might actually bolt away, but after a couple of seconds she exhaled deeply and mumbled, "Sorry. I get a little jumpy sometimes. It's kind of reflex thing."
"No worries. I'll go have a stern word with the flags, if you want."
Emmy laughed. "I'll keep it in mind, thanks. They're my least favorite part of the Easter decorations, because they always do snap and flutter around like that and it makes me twitch."
