On one hand, I viscerally hate this idea—I don’t know anything about him. Any man who can rattle off a list of cities he dreams of living in might as well haveborn to break heartsstamped on his forehead.
On the other, I have never cared less about the risk of something than I do right now.
“You’ll work?” I ask.
She nods.
“The whole day?”
“God, Rue.” She rolls her eyes. “Give me a little credit.”
My toes tap with my nerves. “And your pottery class is tomorrow?”
“I said it was, didn’t I?”
“This is stupid,” I say, mostly to myself. “But fine. I’ll go to this”—I gesture with the paper Nash left—“address. And if I get killed, I’ll be haunting you.”
She chuckles. “I look forward to it.”
I push through the door, muttering all the reasons why I shouldn’t go, but two steps into the parking lot, I stop.
Because there stands Nash, leaning against an SUV and blowing into his harmonica.
“You waited for me,” I say when I’m in front of him, my hands once again in my pockets and a full-blown smile once again on my face.
He pulls the harmonica from his lips, brown eyes as bright as his ice cream cone-covered shirt. “You seemed like the kind of thing I should wait for, Rue Conway.”
“Really?” I ask. “And why’s that?”
His lips twitch. “It’s not every day you meet someone who reads Tijuana bibles for creative inspiration.”
I laugh at this.
“And I’m pretty sure I’m about to fall in love with you,” he adds.
I look at him sideways, feeling a bit like I’m standing on quicksand. He’s feeding me lines I can spot from nine miles away and I don’t even care. “We’ll see about that, Mr. Traveling Substitute.”
He squints a little and his lips dance a little, like he has more perfect words to say, songs to play, and laughs to laugh, but he’s making me wait for them.
“Wine?” I ask, already hoping this date will end with his mouth on mine.
He circles his SUV, modern and new and way too conventional for him, then opens the door for me. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Before he’s in the driver’s seat, my phone dings with a calendar reminder.MOM’S POTTERY CLASS.
I look at the store. She’s standing behind the glass door, waving at me with a big smile on her face. She lied to get me out here.
“Tell me something about Fontain,” Nash says as he starts driving.
He leans onto his elbow resting on the center console while his other arm drapes easily over the steering wheel. It could be a painting—he could. I wish he were so I could keep him.
“Well,” I say, feeling equal parts terrified and exhilarated about what’s to come. “Fontain was first settled by a French family. You already know that?”
He shakes his head, eyes flicking briefly from the road to me.
“Pierre Fontain,” I explain. “He started growing grapes when he got here because he realized the climate of the region mimicked the area of France he came from.” I gesture to the hill covered in grape vines we’re passing. “Voilà. Now North Carolina has Fontain-grown wine.”
“History between man and land,” he says. “I like that. My personal favorite stories of history have always been the ones that happened between two people.”
