Page 22 of Bailey

“Sure did,” he said.

She giggled as she leaned down to smell them. She didn’t know why women did that—pollen didn’t smell good, and she quickly straightened. She looked at him and, in the most flirtatious voice she possessed, said, “You’re going to have to teach me all your delivery ways.”

He tucked his other hand in his pocket and rocked back onto the heels of his cowboy boots. “Happy to do it anytime.”

“Come in,” she said. “And I’ll put these in a vase.”

She turned and walked away, glad when she heard Reeves close the door behind him.

“It’s twenty-three minutes to the diner,” he said. “So I hope you’re not starving.”

“I’ll be fine.” Bailey quickly pulled out a vase from underneath the kitchen sink, filled it with water, and set the wildflowers in it. She turned back to him and found him loitering on the other side of her peninsula.

“You called me wildflower a couple of days ago.”

Reeves blinked, and something blank and fierce covered his expression, just like someone pulling the shutters closed on something they didn’t want to see. “Did I?”

His voice came out a touch harsh, and Bailey didn’t like that. She rounded the counter and slid one hand up the dark gray shirt he wore. It bore no emblems, stripes, or logos; if he put on a tie, he’d be ready for church.

“You sure did,” she said quietly. “When you carried me into the bedroom the night it rained.”

He swallowed but didn’t grind his voice through his throat—both tells Bailey had seen from him before. This man had a lot to say, and chose not to say it. Bailey found she wanted to hear his innermost thoughts. “Do you not remember?” she asked.

“I remember,” he said quietly, his dark gaze holding hers in the intimate space under his cowboy hat. “My grandmother loved wildflowers. We hiked all over Montana and parts of Canada just to see them. I love them. They’re beautiful, they’re so free, and they bloom in even the harshest conditions.”

Bailey searched his face, waiting for him to say something more. He leaned down, and her pulse kicked and paraded through her body. He’s going to kiss me, she thought. But he didn’t. Instead, he swept his cheek along hers and pressed there.

“You remind me of that,” he whispered, his mouth practically catching on her earlobe. “Beautiful, wild and free, and able to bloom anywhere.”

Bailey sighed, so comfortable with him and surprised at how he’d called forth the perfect words and paid her the kindest compliments. “Well, thank you,” she managed to say.

Reeves pulled back and dropped his hands to hers. “Let’s go eat,” he said. “I’ve been so nervous about this date, I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

Bailey wondered if there would come a time when this man didn’t say something that surprised her, and she squeezed his hand as they moved back into her living room and out onto the front porch. “You’re nervous?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Well, it’s my first date in five years,” Bailey said, and she blew her breath out. “So there, now you know. I haven’t had a boyfriend or been out with anyone in a really long time.”

He led her all the way around to the passenger side of his truck and opened her door, but Bailey paused and looked him straight in the eye. “What about you? All you have to do is say higher or lower: Has it been higher than five years since you’ve dated, or lower?”

“Lower,” he said. “But only slightly. I haven’t dated anyone in Coral Canyon, and I’ve been here for a while.”

Bailey nodded, starting to get a better picture of Reeves. She wondered if his previous relationship up north had been what had driven him to Coral Canyon for good, maybe forcing him into his reclusive ways and spurring him to learn everything about delivery services and how to stay off the grid. She didn’t ask, because she boosted herself into his truck and started buckling her seatbelt.

He went around to the other side to get behind the wheel, pulling forward as if he’d enter her garage and then backing out again so he could pull out of her driveway facing forward.

“I can’t wait to see if this pie really is the best west of the Mississippi,” she said.

Reeves grinned over to her. “Have you ever been east of the Mississippi?”

Bailey giggled and shook her head no. “Have you?”

“Can’t say that I have,” he said.

“But you’ve been up to Alaska,” she said. “Is that where you’re from?”

“No,” he said. “I’m from a tiny little town in northern Montana, only about thirty miles from the Canadian border.”