“Thank you,” Hardwicke said, unable to stop himself from returning her smile. “I’m sure it’ll be great.”
“So… you’re here alone then?” Celeste asked as she slid into the booth, sitting opposite him. “I mean, it’s Christmas – will your wife and kids be joining you later?”
Hardwicke swallowed, a cold lump forming in his throat. He hadn’t wanted to ask Celeste about whether she was married for fear of being intrusive, but now she’d introduced the topic herself.
“No wife, no kids,” Hardwicke said. It was better to get things out of the way quickly, he supposed. “I’m just here by myself.”
“Oh.” Celeste seemed unable to hide her surprise. “I’m sorry for assuming, I just – uh, well, it’s just that…” She cleared her throat, her face coloring. “It’s just that you were such acatch, I assumed some lucky lady must have snapped you up years ago. I mean, not that that’s any of my busines…”
She wants to know if we are available,his pegasus insisted, crashing into his consciousness so strongly that for a moment Hardwicke found it difficult to think straight.She is trying to find out if we will mate with her.
No, she’s not. She’s being polite!Hardwicke insisted, once he’d managed to wrestle his pegasus under control again. But still – he had to admit, the question had stirred some dormant hope within him.Wasshe asking because she might still be interested in him, even after all this time…?
“And you?” he blurted, before he could second-guess himself. “You must be married by now yourself.”
Celeste looked down, her dark blue eyes shaded by her long, dark eyelashes.
“Um. Well. As a matter of fact, I’m not,” she said softly. “I just… I guess life didn’t turn out that way for me.”
Hardwicke didn’t know how to name the emotion that burst through him. It certainly wasn’t happiness at Celeste still being single – she’d spoken so softly, her eyes downcast, that it was clear she wasn’t exactly happy about the situation herself, so Hardwicke could hardly be happy about his mate’s sadness, even if itdidmean that something may still be possible between them now. But despite his empathy for his mate’s pain, therewasstill hope there.
Could it happen – after all this time –
“Here you are – just like you ordered!”
Hardwicke’s thoughts were cut off abruptly by a chirpy voice from above. Feeling dazed, he looked up to see a smiling woman standing by their table, two trays loaded down with food in her hands.
“Usually I’d ding the bell at the counter to let you know your food was ready, but you two looked so engrossed in your conversation I thought I’d bring it over myself,” the woman continued after a moment, before putting the two trays down on the table. “Here you go – enjoy. It’s not every day our resident author has a guest, after all, so I really went all-out!”
Hardwicke could tell – the food really did look magnificent. Even he, who usually only thought of food as the sustenance he needed to get through his day, could see that.
Curls of steam rose up from the gorgeously golden-brown potato hash, nestled next to a hearty-looking meatloaf. A massive, juicy-looking pickle sat on the side of the plate, alongside a crisp salad. To complete things, a glass of what looked like homemade lemonade sat on the tray next to the plate, a little sprig of mint tucked in next to the straw.
“Wow,” Hardwicke said, sincerely appreciative. “This looks incredible.”
“You wait until you taste it,” the woman – whom Hardwicke assumed was the cook here, Chrissy – said with a wink. “And now, I won’t interrupt you two any further. Looks like you haveplentyto talk about.”
As Celeste glanced up, Hardwicke saw Chrissy waggling her eyebrows at her, clearly demonstrating what she thought the nature of their conversation was. Celeste blushed a deep red – she’d always blushed easily, Hardwicke remembered – before pursing her lips at Chrissy in a clear signal togo away.
Hardwicke swallowed down his amusement – it wasn’t really funny, he supposed. Chrissy had no way of knowing their past, or the pain it had caused Hardwicke, but then, neither did Celeste. She didn’t know she was his mate; she didn’t know that after her, he’d never loved anyone else.
Casting around for some way to break the awkward silence that had descended over their – truly delicious-looking – meal, Hardwicke recalled suddenly what Chrissy had called Celeste.
“You’re an author?” he asked, picking up his fork and tucking into the hash. “She mentioned you were the resident author here – so that’s what you’ve been doing?”
“Oh… I… well, I suppose people do say that,” Celeste said, picking up her own fork and shoveling an enormous piece of meatloaf into her mouth, as if that would excuse her from having to talk anymore.
Hardwicke had to admit he was a little taken aback. It had been an evasive answer, and Hardwicke had never known Celeste to be anything other than very forthright – sometimes even a littletooforthright.
“I suppose the isolation must be good for a writer,” Hardwicke said, a little cautious, after he finished his mouthful of potato, which had tasted just as good as it looked.
“Mmmm. Hmmm. Mmhmm.” Celeste nodded, clearly taking her time chewing her meatloaf. Finally, after several moments of chewing, she swallowed. “Yeah. That’s… really, I guess it would be!”
It was another evasive answer. Hardwicke frowned, but it seemed like Celeste didn’t want to talk about it – and really, there were a hundred reasons why she might not want to discuss her job. He’d heard of writers who never talked about their books until they were done, for fear of jinxing themselves with writer’s block.
But then again…
Giving himself a mental shake, Hardwicke shoved his instinctive suspicion to one side. Celeste was hismate. He would have sensed it in a moment if something was wrong. He’d just been a Shifter Patrol Corps agent for too long if he was seeing something strange in Celeste’s answers.
