She felt for him, despite herself. “Franco... I have a hunch you’re fishing for something you didn’t even know you wanted. And you may not want to hear this, but you’re using the wrong bait.”
He went still. Then he frowned and angled his head abruptly away from her, looked out the window.
Wow. Thatprofile. She had to be nuts. It belonged stamped on commemorative medals. What woman wouldn’t kill to be her right now, sitting across fromtheFranco Francone?
A woman who knew how lucky she was, that’s who.
“Just be who you are, Franco,” she hazarded gently, albeit somewhat impatiently. “When you take away the words and the people and the car and all the money and all that. Whatever’s left, that’s who you are. Whoever that guy is... well, some woman might think he’s worth passing up a so-called lifetime opportunity for him.”
He turned toward her, his mouth quirked bitterly. “What’s that? A little backwoods wisdom?”
His feelings—or his ego—or both, were wounded.
“Yeah,” she said evenly. “A little backwoods wisdom.”
For better or worse, she knew whoshewas.
And every decision she made from now on would pivot on that knowledge. Which, as far as she was concerned, made her much luckier than Franco Francone.
“I want you to know...” She took in a deep breath. “That making this decision was easy for me. It’s pretty hard not to like you. The only thing I’m sure of is that if I go with you to Napa, I’ll lose him forever. And when it came down to losing him forever or meeting Wyatt Congdon... well, I guess I should thank you for clarifying my whole life for me.”
Franco’s expression had gone dark and mostly unreadable. But there was a hint of sulky incredulity in the knit of his brows.
She sighed. And slid her chair back.
“But thank you for the invitation,” she said politely. “I hope you have a nice time in Napa.” She left a couple of dollars next to her coffee cup and paused. “And if the spirit so moves you, give my regards to Wyatt Congdon. Because one way or another, he’s going to know who I am one day.”
And she didn’t so much walk out the cafe as strut, with a little swing in her hips.
Just to give Franco a little something to remember her by.
Chapter18
Not ten minutes after Glory got home from improbably blowing off Franco Francone, her sister called desperate for a babysitter, and her mom was out doing some work for Gary Shaw.
So Glory headed over to Michelle’s to look after her two oldest, who were five and seven years old and perpetual mess-and-motion machines, while her sister took the youngest to a doctor’s appointment and then did some shopping. Glory didn’t make it back to her own home again until well after dinnertime. Which didn’t leave her any time for self-reflection or recrimination or noodling on her guitar as she mulled over what to do next that she’d originally scheduled for today.
Eli was an all or nothing guy.
What she did next would determine what her forever looked like.
She thought she’d have a quick lie-down when she got home.
But next thing she knew she was opening her eyes with a start; pale morning light had squeezed under her blinds and touched her eyelids. She moved experimentally, surprised to find herself completely clothed underneath an old quilt her grandmother had made from scraps of worn-out clothes she’d saved, so it was like being covered in generations of Greenleafs. She wiggled her toes, bemused; her boots were off but her socks were still on.
She must have just crashed when she got home yesterday; clearly all her emotional reserves had been spent and she’d been running on auxiliary without knowing it. Her mom must have tiptoed in with the comforter at some point, covered her up, and managed to get her boots off with the inimitable delicacy and finesse of moms everywhere.
Glory smiled sleepily, feeling loved, and peered at her alarm clock. It was seven-thirty.
Holy crap!
She had to be at work at eight.
She sat bolt upright and hurtled out of bed, shedding the comforter and bolting down the hall so fast she went into a skid in her socks and nearly wiped out as she rounded the corner to the kitchen. She yanked open the freezer on a hunch.
Her mom must be feeling pretty optimistic about Gary Shaw, because she’d sprung for slightly better coffee. And it was all ground up, too.
With lightning speed she put the water on to boil, shoveled a liberal helping of coffee into the French press, whipped off her shirt, darted into the living room wearing only her bra, and threw on a t-shirt she found folded in the laundry pile on the sofa. It unfurled almost down to her knees. Damn! It was John-Mark’s. Shit shit shit. She pivoted to press the plunger on the French press like she was detonating a building and, like a barbarian, took a hit of coffee straight from the carafe. It tasted marvelous, like ink.
