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Kate liked the answer. He had just listened. She picked up her drink. “What about you? Did children always figure somewhere in the future?”

“Yeah, they did.” Wes leaned back against the booth. “I always thought I’d have a family. Not because I felt there was some deadline I was supposed to meet. I just never met anyone I could picture that life with.”

Kate’s fingers tightened slightly around her glass. “Never?”

“Not until now.” He said it quietly, but there was no mistaking where his gaze went.

For several seconds, Kate could hear the conversations around them more clearly than she wanted to. She had known Wes was attracted to her. She had kissed him herself. But wanting someone and looking across a table while talking about children and family were not quite the same thing. How could he be so sure, after a few days? And why wasn’t she more alarmed that he was? Kate set her glass down before she answered. “That’s a fairly big thing to say over pizza.”

“I suppose it is.” Wes did not look embarrassed by it, but neither did he seem to expect anything from her in return. “I’m not asking you to answer it, Kate. You asked me what I wanted, and I didn’t want to pretend I hadn’t thought about it.”

She appreciated that. More than that, she appreciated that he had left the words where they were instead of turning them into a question she had to deal with tonight. “I’m glad you didn’t pretend.”

Wes gave her a small smile, and they went back to their pizza. The conversation found its way to easier things after that.

Wes asked what she did when she actually had an evening to herself, and Kate had to think because most evenings involved some combination of Penny, work, laundry, and trying to remember what she had gone into a room to do.

“I read sometimes,” she said. “Or I start watching something and fall asleep halfway through it.”

“What sort of movies?”

“These days? Mostly whatever Penny wants to watch,” Kate said. “I used to have opinions about films. Now I can tell you which animated movies have songs that will stay in your head for three days.”

“I might be even less help than you. I barely watch anything during harvest, and if I sit down late enough to put a movie on, I’ll probably be asleep before it gets interesting.”

“So movies aren’t going to be our great shared passion.”

“Probably not.” Wes took another slice. “But I’m prepared to take recommendations from Penny if she feels strongly about it.”

“She always feels strongly about it.”

That made him laugh.

They talked about places they had been, which turned out to be less impressive than Kate expected from both of them. She had traveled more before Penny was born, mostly short trips with friends and a couple of vacations she had saved for, while Wes’s trips were often connected to family, orchard business, or visiting people he knew.

“I always imagined I’d travel more,” Kate admitted. “Then Penny came along and it seemed easier to wait until she was old enough to remember some of it.”

“Anywhere in particular?”

“I’d like to take her somewhere with a beach when she’s a little older. Somewhere she can spend all day collecting shells and I can sit down for longer than five minutes.”

“That sounds like a reasonable ambition.”

“It gets more ambitious. I also want someone else to cook.”

Wes smiled. “Now you’re asking a lot.”

Kate laughed.

They drifted into food after that, discovering that Wes would happily eat the same breakfast every day for a month while Kate got bored after three days, and that neither of them understood people who ordered dessert while insisting they were too full to finish dinner.

By the time the pizza was gone, Kate realized they had been there far longer than she had expected. The server came back to clear their plates and asked whether they wanted coffee.

Kate reached for her phone, checked the time, and then looked across at Wes. Penny would be fine. If she was still awake, she was probably drinking hot chocolate and talking her grandparents into one more story. There was no reason Kate needed to hurry back just because she usually did. She put the phone down again.

“Coffee would be good.”

CHAPTER 12