Chapter Twelve
“It’s a date.” The words were playing in his mind on a never-ending loop.
He felt like such a girl. In the last twenty minutes, he’d tried on and rejected three different shirts.
Never in his life had a single evening out with a woman had him nearly paralyzed with fear.
He had no idea where he’d found the nerve to ask Kat out.
Though he’d tried to couch it as casually as possible, the invitation sounded like a date, felt like a date, and like it or not—was a date. Kat’s response proved it.
Standing in front of the mirror over the dresser, he looked down at the blue button-down he’d finally settled on.
The color at least made him look like himself.
Or maybe a version of himself he could live with.
For a quick flash, his mind drifted to his buddies, to how they must have felt.
Taking the cell phone from his pocket, he gave a quick call to Gideon.
Last time they’d spoken his buddy had sounded…
down. Hanson hadn’t been feeling much better so he hadn’t called as much as he should have, but maybe just a few minutes now could put them both at ease.
The phone rang and then voice mail. He waited for the beep.
“Hey bro. Just taking a minute to check in. Things here are…” What were they?
“Coming along. Give me a ring when you have a moment.” Placing his cell back in his pocket, he hoped it was a good sign that Gideon was too busy to take a call, but he had his doubts.
Heaving a deep sigh, he stared at his reflection.
Hair trimmed. Jaw clean-shaven, he looked strong and steady.
Too bad none of that changed the fact that inside he felt about sixteen years old and half a breath away from disaster.
It’s just a date, he reminded himself. Four words.
Simple. Direct. No confusion possible. Which, given the state of his brain lately, should have been a mercy.
Dinner. With Kat. Alone. He glanced at the clock.
Five thirty-two. Time to leave. By the time he’d reached town, Hanson had checked the card twice, his watch three times, and the rearview mirror more often than recommended for safe driving.
Now, parked in front of the address Kat had given him, he double-checked twice even though he had been given such precise directions a blind man could have found the place.
He found himself sitting there with his pulse beating a little too hard for a man merely headed to dinner.
He had asked women out before. Plenty of times.
Even before his brains had been rattled, none of them had made him think through every word before he spoke it.
None of them had made him wonder whether he could keep up his end of a conversation for two solid hours without losing a thread and feeling like a fool.
None of them had made him care, truly care, what a woman would see when she looked across a table at him. Tonight he cared. That was the problem.
The front door opened. Light spilled across the porch first. Then Kat stepped into it.
For one suspended second, the whole evening narrowed to that doorway.
For a moment, every useful thought left him.
She wore a soft white dress that flowed down just below her knees and those pink cowboy boots he had no business noticing as much as he did.
She looked sweet and bright and entirely too capable of undoing him without touching a thing.
“Hi.” Her gaze softened and her cheeks tugged at the corners of her mouth.
Clearing his throat, he barely managed to mutter back the word, “hi.” No question about it, he definitely felt like a teenager on his first date. “You look beautiful.”
Her lashes lowered for half a second before she met his gaze again. “Thank you.”
He cleared his throat. “Ready?”
“Very.” Her smile widened.
For just a moment, he pondered if she could possibly be as nervous about tonight as he was.
Instead of lingering on the thought, he held her door open for her, waited till those cute pointy toe boots were settled in the cab, and closed the door behind her, forcing himself to walk, not run, around the hood.
“Where are we going?” Her voice was soft and casual and no different than if she’d asked about the weather or the day of the week.
“Alice suggested a new place just outside of town. She and Clint went there a few weeks ago and she told me that they were pleasantly surprised at how good the food was and that I might get a chance to practice my two step.”
“Do you want to?” Now her eyes were alight with amused interest.
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?”
“Not at all.” Her eyes widened for a second. “I thought you caught on pretty quickly.”
“Thank you.” Just a few words, a simple communication, and the tension he’d been storing all night between his shoulder blades slipped away.
The remainder of the short drive was spent chatting about everything and anything from Mason’s progress to the new horse and how much Kat enjoyed helping challenged kids reach their full potential.
To him, conversing with Kat felt like being with a lifelong friend, not someone he’d known for a short while.
The moment the restaurant came into view, the last teeny ounce of apprehension he had on how this evening would go evaporated completely.
From the outside the place exceeded his expectations.
A small single-story house that at one time must have been a family home.
Twinkling lights hung from the roofline and across the side, lighting an outdoor area that had scattered tables and the rumble of laughter from a handful of patrons.
From the cheers that followed the voices, he had a feeling there was something else going on outside besides a gathering over good food.
“Oh, my.” Kat’s gaze widened as she took in the quaint décor of the cozy establishment.
Soft lighting filled the cozy spaces. White linen tablecloths with candlelight centerpieces gave just enough hint at fancy without being pretentious.
Quite the opposite, everything about the small dining area prompted visitors to sit a spell.
As they waited by the front door taking in the layout, a brightly smiling young girl who looked too young to vote hurried over from behind the bar. “Welcome to Hemingways. Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes. For two. Hanson.”
“Yes. Follow me.” Coming out from behind the podium, she grabbed two menus and led the way to a back table, far enough out of the way for privacy, but close enough to the picture window to have a birds eye view of the well-lit outside.
“I’ve recently heard a few people talking about this place, but nothing prepared me for how lovely this is.” Kat slipped her napkin across her lap.
Hanson squinted through the picture window a few feet ahead. “Are they playing games out there?”
Turning her head to glance over her shoulder, Kat squinted at the same glass, then broke into a smile. “Cornhole.”
“They play corn hole at a nice restaurant like this?”
“This is the cornhole capital of Texas. They’d play it in a latrine if there was enough space.”
That made him laugh. Not so much the imagery, but the idea of her using the word latrine. Though if he were honest with himself, everything about her made him feel better about himself and the world around him. Now what was he going to do about it?
Dinner proved to be every bit as good as Alice had promised.
Better, maybe, because the food was wonderful, the little converted house was charming, and Hanson Taylor was not nearly as nervous once the menus had been taken away and the first basket of warm rolls arrived at the table.
Kat had noticed the shift in him. At first he’d been careful.
Not stiff, exactly, but watchful. As if every sentence required a little extra thought before he released it into the room.
Then, somewhere between the salsa that had more kick than he expected and the story he told about his father’s old Corvette refusing to start on the one day his teenage self had wanted very badly to impress a girl, his shoulders had eased.
Now, sitting across from him with candlelight flickering between them and the sound of laughter drifting in from the patio, Kat found herself wondering how a man could look both impossibly strong and quietly uncertain at the same time.
Fiddling with a spoon, Hanson’s gaze leveled with hers. “You really enjoy living in Honeysuckle?”
The question caught her by surprise. Not because it was difficult, but because of how he asked it.
There was no polite filler in his tone. No making-conversation-for-the-sake-of-it emptiness.
He genuinely wanted to know. Across the candlelit table, Hanson watched her with those clear blue eyes of his, steady and attentive.
He had a way of looking at a person that made them feel as though their answer mattered. As if they mattered.
Leaning back, Kat smiled. “I love it.” The words came easily.
So easily that for a second she thought to leave it there.
But the evening had already moved beyond small talk and safe answers.
Somewhere between his nervous honesty and the warm ease of supper, this had become something else.
Something more. She curled her fingers around the stem of her wine glass and looked down at the white tablecloth a moment before lifting her gaze back to his. “I didn’t always think I would.”
One of his brows rose slightly. “No?”
She shook her head. “When I left for college, I was absolutely certain I was going to set the world on fire.” A soft laugh slipped out.
“I was going to teach young children, revolutionize classrooms, save every struggling student, and probably have a fabulous apartment somewhere with brick walls and a coffee shop right downstairs.”
Tipping his head ever so slightly, he smiled and nodded. “I can see it.”