13
Drew pulled his truck alongside the doors of Barclay’s Steak House and stared at the handwritten sign taped to the glass: Closed due to electrical issues.
“Is this town falling apart?” Savannah asked from beside him.
Drew shifted roughly into park. “Apparently,” he muttered.
Then he raked his hand back through his hair in growing frustration.
This was the fourth sit-down restaurant they’d tried; the others had also been closed for various reasons, including water damage, a small kitchen fire and inoperable restrooms. It was as if the universe were somehow conspiring to make sure he could not take Savannah Reynolds on a decent first date.
He rescanned his mental map of Cypress Valley; surely there was somewhere else that wasn’t a fast-food chain or a college bar—but he came up empty time and time again.
“What if we go to Sonic?” Savannah suggested, and Drew felt physical pain behind his breastbone. He hadn’t been dreaming about a date with Savannah for seven years just to end up at Sonic. It was too cruel.
But it was also one of the only options left.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned, leaning his head back against the headrest. “This really isn’t how I pictured tonight going.”
A breathy little laugh escaped her. “I just want to eat, Drew. I don’t care what it is,” she assured him. “Besides, we both like tater tots, remember? Sonic is fine.”
He sighed in resignation before dropping his hand back onto the gearshift.
“Fine isn’t what I was going for,” he grumbled.
Her hand joined his, and he looked down as she threaded their fingers together.
Then his glance skated up her arm and over the rest of her autumn-colored outfit.
She was far too dressed up to eat in the car at Sonic, but the best he could do was the best he could do.
“Are you coming with me?” she asked.
He felt a furrow form between his brows. “Yes . . .”
“Then it’s perfect,” she said firmly. A smile spread across her face, and she leaned over and brushed her lips against the corner of his mouth. “Just drive.”
Warmth sluiced through Drew’s veins as he shifted the truck back into drive and eased forward. Whatever he had to do to get more of her time and touch, he’d do—even if it meant ordering from a speaker.
Unfortunately, they weren’t the only people in town with the audacity to be hungry.
The four well-used picnic tables in front of the drive-in were filled to capacity, and pickup trucks bearing Mason County High School decals cruised in and out of the parking lot, blaring their horns as people leaned out their windows to yell at friends in other cars.
Drew had to correct their order twice as the carhop read it back to him. “Good grief, we could get anything!” he said, turning to Savannah in exasperation.
A car door slammed nearby, and a group of teenage boys in varsity jackets sauntered past, laughing loudly.
“What?” Savannah asked. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“I said, we could get anything! I’ll be amazed if—”
On the far end of the lot, someone started playing “Shave and a Haircut” on their horn. The car beside Drew answered with two quick blasts.
Savannah shook her head and laughed—or at least, Drew thought she was laughing based on her expression. He wasn’t sure he could distinguish the sound itself from the racket around them, even though she was barely a foot away. He felt his agitation rising.
As if reading his thoughts, Savannah unbuckled her seat belt and slid across the bench seat to tuck herself beneath his arm. Then she tipped her face up so she was speaking directly into his ear. “What if we take our food someplace else?” she asked.
“Sure, but where?” he asked, turning so she could hear him, too.
She shrugged, and he felt the motion down the length of his rib cage. “My apartment?”
He shook his head. “I’m trying to take you on a date!” he protested. “We eat at home all the time.”
“Okay, then an empty parking lot?”
He frowned again. The way their luck was going, he was guaranteed to get a knock on his window from a police officer if they tried to just park somewhere.
Savannah didn’t wait for his rebuttal this time. “What about that field you took me to? That you grow hay on?”
Possibility began to take shape inside Drew’s mind. His acreage wasn’t necessarily convenient, but they were at least on the right side of town, and nobody would bother them out there. It was his land, after all; they could camp out all night if they wanted.
“That could work,” he conceded.
Moments later, their carhop arrived with a large paper sack and two chocolate milkshakes. Drew paid the ticket and handed the bag to Savannah just as the Mason County fight song began blaring from the speakers of a truck in the next bay.
“Alright, get us out of here!” she shouted, fastening her seat belt.
Drew didn’t need to be told twice. He let the engine roar to life and jerked the truck into reverse, all too eager to put some distance between them and the chaos.
The paper takeout bag in Savannah’s lap crinkled as she rummaged through it. “If you can guess something that’s in here, you can eat it,” she said.
Drew froze, his hand on the gearshift. “It’s not two burgers and tater tots?”
“Nope.”
He shifted into park near the field’s towering oak tree and groaned. Of course—they’d gotten the right ticket, but the wrong bag. Not only had he not taken her anywhere nice, but she couldn’t even eat what she’d wanted!
“Aww, come on,” she urged, obviously reading his thoughts on his face. “It’s like a game show! Look.” She held up a cylindrical object wrapped in silver foil. “What do you think is behind door number one?”
Drew pressed his lips into a firm line, half intending to go straight back to the drive-in and get the meal he’d paid for, but it was late, and they were both hungry. “Breakfast burrito?” he guessed, giving in.
Savannah carefully peeled back one corner of the wrapper and peeked inside. “Wrong!” she called in a booming announcer’s voice. “Would you like to guess again or move to door number two?”
Drew considered, wondering how in the world he’d gone from having reservations at an Italian restaurant to playing “Mystery Meal” in the middle of nowhere. But, somehow, he didn’t hate it. Not when he was with her. “Door number two,” he decided.
In the end, he won a hot dog and a sleeve of mozzarella sticks, and Savannah had popcorn chicken and cheese fries.
“You see those branches? The big ones that flare out?” she asked suddenly, veering off course from her latest story about Roscoe the beagle who ate everything.
Drew looked up from his milkshake to find her leaning forward, craning her neck to one side so she could look straight up into the tree above them. He leaned over the steering wheel and did the same. “Yeah?”
“You could put a killer treehouse up there.”
Drew squinted his eyes, trying to imagine it. “A treehouse? For what?” he asked.
“For the corn maze, remember? Put a giant treehouse right in the middle so people have something to work their way toward. You could call it ‘Tanner’s Treehouse.’”
Drew twisted his head to the other side. “That’s very original,” he deadpanned, and Savannah elbowed him playfully in the ribs.
“Okay, fine, call it something else, but it would be cool. We don’t have anything like that around here.”
Drew sighed and flopped back against the bench seat.
“Yeah, but I don’t have the slightest idea how to do that.
A maze? With corn, you’d have to grow the crop, then plan the path and cut it somehow.
A hay maze would need walls that won’t collapse, and a treehouse probably needs all kinds of permits . . .”
“It would be new,” Savannah reasoned, poking him right where Grandma Ruby had intended.
Drew quickly shut his mouth. “Yeah. It would be new,” he echoed, but could he make it work?
Row crops, hay fields—he understood those.
But agritourism? That wasn’t just outside his comfort zone; it was on a whole different planet.
He was still staring blankly at the rough bark of the tree in front of them, mentally sifting through all the things he didn’t know about this crazy idea, when Savannah spoke again.
“Oh, I love this one,” she said, breaking the pensive silence and leaning forward to twist the volume knob on the radio. Some song Drew vaguely recognized filled the cab, and Savannah rolled down the window on her side. “Come on!” she said. “Get out.”
Drew blinked several times as he watched her open her door and slide to the ground. “Get out? Now?” he asked stupidly. “But it’s cold!”
It was at least fifty degrees, which was unusually warm for the middle of November—but it was still the middle of November.
“Oh, don’t be a baby!” she teased from outside the truck. “Roll your window down and come dance with me.”
Drew couldn’t hold back a small groan. “Savannah,” he begged, rolling down his window like he’d been told. “I don’t dance.”
“You say that, but I bet it’s not true,” she called.
“No, it is true. It is very true,” he protested, even though he knew he was going to do whatever she asked. He couldn’t not.
Savannah smiled and held out her hands as he climbed down from the cab and shut his door behind him.
“Here. I’ll show you how,” she assured him.
The sound of the radio drifted out through the open windows, and a small, cold moon gave just enough light to see her face.
She was looking at him in that way he loved, the way he could never get enough of.
She took his hands in hers as he came closer.
“Look, you put this here”—she curled one of his hands around the side of her waist—“and you hold this one up here,” she finished, raising his other hand in hers.
She slid her free hand over the crest of his shoulder and began to sway them both from side to side.