Chapter 11
eleven
“ T his is for sure the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Kristie said.
Mission smiled over to her as he chewed his deep dish pepperoni pizza—with extra cheese and extra pepperoni. He had gotten himself a small Caesar salad to go with her garden salad, but they’d eaten those first at the dining room table in his cabin.
Then he’d taken the two pizza boxes in one hand and her hand in the other and led her out his back door. She hadn’t questioned him, because she trusted Mission—and Kristie couldn’t remember the last man she’d liked or trusted as much as him.
He’d taken her along the edge of the woods at the back of his property and past acres of fields that angled away from the part of the farm where Kristie was used to working.
She could see the stables and walking circles in the distance.
Eventually, Mission had taken her to a cabin that clearly didn’t get used very often.
The walk had taken maybe thirty minutes, and he’d ended it with, “We sometimes stay out here when we’re hunting or have to work on the fields and fences on the south end of the farm.”
Nothing but fields existed beyond the cabin, and instead of going inside or sitting on the steps—or even getting out lawn chairs and positioning them to face west—Mission had taken her to the west side of the cabin and nodded his cowboy hat at a ladder.
“You want me to climb up there?” she’d asked.
“Yes.”
And Kristie had done it.
He’d followed, using only one hand to climb that ladder, and joined her on the roof of the single-story cabin. It had a gently sloping roof that probably only rose up ten feet at the very pinnacle. Someone—she was guessing Mission himself—had put a loveseat there, facing west.
Kristie now sat on the dark brown microfiber, her stomach full, her soul rejoicing, and her heart happier than it had been in a long time.
They still had at least an hour until it would be full dark, but the towering, majestic Rocky Mountains in the west did cause the sun to officially set earlier than it would otherwise.
Mission had told her a lot of heavy things about his past, and that had only spurred Kristie to want to tell him about the reasons she’d left Anthem—a suburb in the Phoenix area—and never gone back.
At the same time, he’d said he was all talked out, and Kristie didn’t want to lay more at his feet than either of them wanted tonight.
He’d kept the conversation easy and light, talking about how he’d like to adopt a dog that could keep him company on the walk to and from work every day.
They’d talked about his favorite holidays—Christmas and Easter—and she’d learned that both were because of the food.
He didn’t care about decorations or dressing up.
He liked having ham and potatoes, or turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy.
She’d teased him about how almost all of his good memories had revolved around food.
“Including this one,” he’d said and taken another bite of his pizza. He sure knew what to say to make Kristie’s insides turn to goo, and she didn’t mind that one bit.
She tossed her crust into her box at her feet and toed it further away from her. “I am so full,” she said.
She’d only eaten three pieces of pizza, but Mission had gotten larges for both of them, so she’d have plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow and the next day.
“Same,” he said, though he’d eaten half his pie before even slowing down. “I’m just gonna have one more piece,” he added as he separated it from the rest. “Do you know much about the mountains?”
“I mean, a little bit,” she said. “While I was starting up my veterinary practice here, I worked as a school aide. We did some field trips where we had to take the kids on hikes and read all the signs on the trails.”
He smiled over at her. “That sounds so like you.”
“Does it?” she asked.
“I mean, I think so,” he said. “I can see kids liking you.”
“Why would they like me?”
“You’re pretty, and smart, and patient.”
“Pretty, and smart, and patient.” She grinned at him, not sure she’d use all of those words to describe herself. But from him, they sounded like the truth. “Thank you, Mission.”
He stuffed his mouth full of pizza, and while the sun had definitely turned more golden since they’d been on the rooftop, she could still easily see the flush that colored his cheeks.
“I’m going to order a haircutting kit right now,” she said, retrieving her phone from where she’d stuck it under her leg.
“You won’t be able to get service out here,” he said.
Sure enough, she had no bars. “Huh. I bet I can get one in town,” she said. “I was just going to order online.”
Mission hummed and dusted his hands together, closing his pizza box. Then he leaned toward her as he opened the armrest on the side of the loveseat. “You want a bottle of water, kitten?”
“You have water in that thing?” she asked.
Mission chuckled as he lifted an ice-cold, dripping bottle of water out of the armrest. “This thing has a cooler in it,” he said. “I was hoping it would last all day, because I came this morning and put ice and drinks in it. And it looks like it did.”
He’d come this morning and put ice and drinks in the couch on the roof. Kristie wasn’t sure why, but that simple gesture of preparing in advance for their date made her fall a little bit in love with him.
“What else you got in there?” she asked.
“Diet Coke,” he said. “Diet Dr. Pepper—that’s for me. A Sprite. And this is….”
She heard the clunking of ice against the side of the cooler.
“Apple juice, looks like,” he said. “I just took whatever Cosette had in the front of the barn, and I had to promise her that I would replace it all. So whatever you want is fine.”
“I’ll take the Sprite,” Kristie said.
He handed her the bright green can. The satisfying pop-hiss of carbonation met her ears when she opened it, and she took a drink while he opened his can of Diet Dr. Pepper.
“This is an incredible setup you’ve got out here,” she said.
“Sure is,” he murmured.
“Did you do this?”
“All the boys have been doing lots of stuff out here for as long as I can remember,” he said. “Matt put picnic tables down by the river too, because it’s nice to have a quiet place to sit and eat.”
“But the couch was your idea, right?” she pressed.
“Boone was getting rid of the couch,” Mission said. “It needed to go somewhere.”
Kristie giggled, surprised that such a sound could come out of her mouth—especially in Mission Redbay’s presence.
She’d been wrong about him for so long, and that made something inside her coil and curdle as she sobered.
She liked being asked out by a man, but it wasn’t a necessity.
Mission had asked her out three times now.
So she said, “I just want the record to show that we still have not gotten any mini donuts.”
Mission threaded his fingers through hers and turned toward her. “I suppose we haven’t,” he said.
“What do you think about going back to the Summer Stroll tomorrow?” she asked, trying to make her voice casual and light.
Boy, asking someone out sure was hard, and she suddenly had more sympathy for every man who’d ever invited someone on a date.
“They’ll be there,” she said. “I won’t take your whole evening. Just dessert.”
“I don’t mind dedicating my whole evening to you, kitten.”
“Well, I don’t want you to be in a rush,” she said, remembering the way Mission had practically jogged down the lane to her—clearly irritated that she’d been at his house before him.
“So I won’t rush,” he said. “Dessert’s after dinner, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So I’ll come by and get you at, say, eight?”
“I don’t want to keep you out too late either,” she said. “You texted me last week that you’re always one of the first on the farm.”
He nodded and brought her knuckles to his lips. “It’ll be fine, Kris.”
When he used her name instead of “kitten,” she decided to let this go. He was a grown man, and he could turn her down if he wanted to.
“Eight o’clock then,” she said, wondering when they’d simply move into seeing each other every day without the need to make plans. She liked that stage of dating, though she sure did like this getting-to-know-Mission part as well.
The sun sank lower and lower, the sky turning various colors of gold, orange, lavender, and navy. The mountains started to swallow it, the bottom edge of the sun now mirroring the jagged peaks.
It always seemed to take so long for the sun to disappear completely—and then, one moment, it was simply gone.
“There it goes,” Mission said quietly.
Seemingly, the top third of the sun disappeared in the next few seconds, plunging them into inky twilight.
Kristie suddenly didn’t want this evening to end. She felt her time with Mission slipping away, just like the sun had disappeared behind the mountains.
“We shouldn’t linger,” he said. “We have to get down to the ground, and we’ll want to be back closer to civilization before too long. There are coyotes out here.”
“Okay,” Kristie said, but panic paraded through her when Mission released her hand and leaned forward to pick up his pizza box.
“Just answer one more thing for me,” she said.
He leaned back and looked at her, curiosity raging through his expression.
“What’s one thing in your life you really want? Something you dream about doing?”
Mission blinked, clearly not expecting such a question. He cleared his throat and ducked his head, using that sexy cowboy hat to hide his face. “My granddad taught me not to worry about things I don’t have,” Mission said.
“But you must have dreams,” Kristie said.
He sighed and looked back toward the mountains, as if she were being difficult on purpose. “Tell me one of yours then,” he said.
“I want to win a blue ribbon at the Colorado State Fair for my baking,” she said.
That brought a smile to Mission’s face. He nodded and said, “I think you’ll be able to do that, kitten.”
“All right, your turn,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing.”
He turned to face her. “What if all I’ve got is a big thing?”
“That’s fine too.”
His eyes drifted down to her mouth, and every cell in Kristie’s body rioted. Would he kiss her on this rooftop in the afterglow of the summer sunset? She suddenly wanted nothing more than that.
“A wife,” he said. “And a family. Been thinking about those things a lot the last couple of years. I’ve been out with several women, trying to find the right one for me.”
Kristie reached up and trailed her fingertips down the side of his face, feeling the softness in his beard. “And you haven’t found her yet?”
“Jury’s still out on you, kitten,” he whispered.
He lifted his hand to cradle her face too, his dark eyes buzzing with such intensity. He hesitated for one breath of time—which was so classically Mission that it made Kristie smile—before he leaned down and touched his lips to hers.
She slid her hand to the back of his head, threading her fingers through his hair and pulling him closer.
She kissed him back, realizing that she should have been dreaming of something different since the moment she’d met Mission.
She should have been dreaming of this very moment, where he kissed her like she was royalty, perfectly worthy of his love, and absolutely desirable by a good-looking, hardworking cowboy.
She’d never been kissed like this before. And once again, she found herself praying that this night would never end.