“All the practice, I bet, with all those pretty things.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, and he shrugged a shoulder. “Good way to get your mind off something or... someone,” he expounded. “Sex.”
“Like the fact that J.T. won an Emmy before you did?”
He gave a short, pained laugh. “Ah, look. Our entrees are here.”
Chapter16
Franco had dropped her off at about nine p.m., kissed her chastely (on the cheek she turned to him as if she was some kind of nun, which might mark the first occasion Mrs.Binkley, who was peering through her curtains, had seen a Greenleaf chastely kiss anyone, let alone in a Porsche), and he told her to meet him at nine in the morning at Cafe Cinnabar on Friday if she wanted to go to Wyatt Congdon’s Napa Estate that weekend.
And to pack light.
The implication being that clothes would be pretty superfluous.
And that the weekend would be anything other than chaste.
She hadn’t told anyone she’d gone out with Franco. She particularly hadn’t wanted to get her mom’s hope up about Glory being snatched up by a movie star just like Britt Langley.
She mulled over the notion of Kismet the next day during the morning shift as she delivered wrong orders to the wrong tables 50percent of the time, probably because the decision she faced occupied about 50percent of her brain. Things certainly seemed to be going her way (if not Giorgio’s, or her bosses’ ways, at least not today) with the success of The Baby Owls concert and the two hundred bucks and her burgeoning Facebook page and the famous actor waving Wyatt Congdon and his estate at her.Estate.What on earth made something an “estate?” Was there a castle? She should look that up.
But she’d always imagined that Kismet would feel more like, say, The Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” sounded. Destined and seductive and easy andright, as though a path was just unfurling a bit at a time right in front of her.
Instead a sense of tense anticipation remained. Of something unfinished.
She found herself wondering about Eli’s Kismet.
And what he’d done when he’d opened that birthday gift from Bethany. If he’d shown her gratitude, third-date style.
She pocketed her tips, grateful that her customers had bothered to leave them, and headed home from work on foot, welcoming the steep, sinewy walk up Main Street, the greetings from various animals (Peace and Love the cat, and Hamburger, Lloyd Sunnergren’s big hairy dog), and the waves through windows, and even as she loved it she knew she could leave it behind in a heartbeat in order to be who she was.
And she headed out on that familiar route, up the hill, up and up, across the pasture, through the fence, past the tree—
She leaped backward and clapped her hand over her heart.
Eli was leaning against the pasture rail. Still as a tree.
In jeans and an old pale blue t-shirt.
She couldn’t get a word out for quite a few seconds.
He didn’t say a thing. The sun struck what looked like silver sparks from his eyes.
“Jesus, Eli, you nearly scared thelifeout of me.”
He didn’t answer her. Just studied her thoughtfully.
And then he moved. Subtly.
Time seemed to elongate strangely as he moved toward her. Slow, measured, stalking steps. Someone, perhaps, preparing for battle.
And then she saw what was in his hand.
Her heartbeat kicked up a notch.
Yep. Bethany had given him the present.
He stopped about three feet in front of her. Looked at her, as if for the first, maybe the last, time.
