“You too,” Grant said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Ben looked at Amelia, who shook her head.
“From Layla,” Grant added.
“Well, then I’m not sure if all of it was good,” Ben said with a grin.
“It was mostly good,” she assured him. “No worries.”
“That’s good to know.”
“So what are you two up to this afternoon?” she asked. “Going out on the boat?”
Ben glanced at Amelia, then said, “We haven’t decided yet.”
“If you end up without a plan, you’re always welcome to come by the house. We’ve got a pool set up, and Grant is going to barbecue some hamburgers and hotdogs.”
“We’ll keep that in mind,” Ben said, though he hoped that Amelia would be willing to have a meal with just him. He really wanted to talk about the contents of the binder, and to do that, they couldn’t be hanging out with anyone else.
Layla gave Amelia a hug. “Give me a call later. I haven’t chatted with you all week.”
“Will do.”
As they moved away from Layla and Grant, they ran into Cole and Annie. After another invitation for the afternoon, which they declined, he and Amelia headed for the doors.
“Well, that felt a bit like running a gauntlet,” Amelia said as they walked down the front steps of the church.
“At the risk of making you continue to feel that way,” Ben began, “would you be interested in having lunch with me?”
She looked up at him, squinting as the light hit her eyes. “What’s on the menu? And where?”
“I was kind of thinking about having lunch on your balcony again,” Ben said. “I enjoyed that last time.”
“It was nice,” Amelia agreed. “With food from the diner?”
“Actually, I was thinking of getting an order from The Steakhouse at the resort.”
“That would be nice.”
“Well, let’s go check the menu,” he said.
He drove her car, while Luca followed in the SUV. Amelia pulled up the menu on the phone and read out the options to Ben. No surprise, he was heavily leaning toward the steak.
“I think I’d like the grilled steak salad,” she said.
By the time they’d reached her place, they’d each decided what they wanted, so it was just a matter of asking Luca what he wanted. After they placed the order, Ben had Luca drive them out to the resort in the SUV to pick it up.
“It’s such a beautiful drive out here,” Amelia said as she looked out the window. “I miss that.”
Ben reached out and took her hand. “Have you been to the rink at all since you stopped skating?”
“No.” She glanced at him, then back out the window. “I was out here to meet with the doctor, though.”
“At the hotel?”
She nodded. “He and his assistant were staying here.”
Ben still wished that she’d let him know so that he could have gone with her, but he understood that she’d needed to do it alone. He was just glad that she’d shared what the doctor had told her with him.
