“This is really nice,” Ella said softly as he took his seat opposite her.
“Thank you for deciding to come,” he said.
“Welcome to The Village Green,” a young man said as he approached. “I’m Geno and I’d like to tell you about our specials.”
“Of course,” Ella said. “Thank you.”
Geno burst into a well-rehearsed description of a ribeye with a salad, and then a honey-glazed salmon with garlic mashed potatoes.
“My favorite though is the vegetarian option,” he said. “We have a collection of cheeses and homemade bread, accompanied by our special sweet potato bake. The sweet potatoes are from a local farm, sliced paper thin and bathed in rosemary and olive oil.”
“Local sweet potatoes,” Dalton echoed.
Across the table, Ella smiled and nodded to him. Then she shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if to say,we can’t get away from the farm.
Holding in his laughter made Dalton instantly feel more at ease.
Geno took their drink orders, placed a pair of leather-bound menus on the table, and then headed off.
“How wild is that?” Ella said when he was gone.
“I guess I can take the girl off the farm, but…” Dalton teased.
“You can’t stop the farm from following,” she finished for him, making him chuckle.
“I guess not,” he said with a smile.
“Will you judge me if I order it?” Ella asked.
“Of course not,” he said. “But you’re not a vegetarian.”
He’d seen her put away second helpings on meatloaf night, so he knew that much was true.
“No,” she told him. “It just sounded so good.”
She laughed a little at herself, but something about the whole thing made his heart tug. Here was the girl he cared for, going to the nicest restaurant in town and ordering a dish she could eat for free at home.
She knows who she is. She knows what she wants.
Ella was so quiet most of the time that it would have been easy to mistake her calm for timidity. But her feet were firmly planted on the ground and her sense of herself was so absolute, it often left him feeling in awe of the young woman, whose world kept collapsing under her without taking her down with it.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he told her. “I just like that you want what you want.”
Geno came back with two hot apple ciders and two glasses of ice water and they ordered their meals. Ella ordered the cheese plate and sweet potatoes and Dalton decided on the ribeye.
“Sorry if I seem impatient,” Ella said. “But I’d love to hear the story of your Christmas with Andy, if you don’t mind sharing it.”
“Of course,” Dalton told her, pleased that she had remembered. “It’s kind of a silly one, I’ll just warn you.”
“The sillier the better,” she said, leaning forward and cupping her hot cider in both hands. The steam rose to caress her sweet face, and Dalton wished he could do the same.
“Well, we were in basic training,” he told her. “And your parents sent him a care package.”
“Of course,” Ella said, nodding.
“Well, a lot of guys got care packages,” he said. “Mostly it was just store-bought cookies and stuff like that. But your mom sent homemade cranberry bread and gingerbread loaf.”
