It was perfect timing because Logan’s flight was scheduled to land in a few hours. Any minute, he’d call. Maybe even tonight. Who knew? With any luck, I could be the first bride to book Carl’s Creek. The thought made me smile. I tried to keep myself busy all day in an effort to avoid sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. But alone in the coziness of the cottage it was hard not think about Logan.
It was good for me to spend the day alone, because it gave me a break from seeing Thatcher. And with him out of sight, I felt ridiculous for even entertaining the idea of my little crush to begin with. The love of my life was coming home. We shared a history together, a long-standing past. And I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of our future.
There was a rap at the cottage door. I was so immersed in my thoughts, at first I wondered if I imagined the knock. But there it was again. Tap, tap, tap. I looked away from the computer and rubbed my eyes. Tap, tap, tap.
“Coming!” I pushed back my chair and walked over to the door, flinging it open. I was expecting to see Jake. Or Sara, maybe.
But there stood Thatcher with two large paper bags in his arms. He was freshly-showered and dressed in a button-down shirt. His jeans were free of holes, and he was wearing brown loafers in place of his usual muddy boots.
“Oh.” I touched my hair, suddenly aware of my sweatpants and lack of makeup. “Hey.”
“Hey, there.” He shifted the weight of the bags.
“Hey. Um, what’s up?”
“You wanted pizza,” he said.
“Huh?”
“The other day. When we got pancakes. You were going out for a pizza. You never got one.”
“Oh. Right.”
“You want me to make you one?”
“Make me what?”
“A pizza. I brought the stuff.”
“Oh.” I went to check my watch, but then I realized I wasn’t wearing one. “Is it dinner time?”
“Thereabouts. But if now’s not a good time… I should have called first. I can go.” He took a step back.
“No!” I held up a hand to stop him. “No. It’s fine. I’m wrapping up anyway.”
What had I said? I should have told him I needed to be somewhere or do something. Instead, I reached out and took one of the bags.
He broke into a grin and stepped through the threshold of the cottage, ducking a little as he passed through the doorway.
“Where’ve you been hiding?” he asked.
“I’ve been working on the website,” I said to him over my shoulder as I placed the bag on the white tiled countertop. “You want to see it?”
“Sure.”
He put the second bag down, and I led him over to where the laptop rested on the kitchen table. “Well, um, here it is. It’s already live, but I can’t imagine anyone would come across it because we don’t have any ads or anything yet. I figure I’ll run it by Jake and Sara first.”
Thatcher lowered himself into the chair and read. As he did, I studied the back of his head. I noticed the way his hair curled up near the nape of his neck and tried to ignore the nervous fluttering in my stomach. It was back in an instant. One minute, I was sitting here thinking about how I was glad I’d managed to avoid Thatcher all day. And the next, here he was on my doorstep, and I was happy to see him.
Too happy, maybe.
Logan is coming home tonight. You’re a little out of sorts right now. Don’t blow this. You’re so close. Any minute he’ll call.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was nothing. I mean, a girl had to eat, right? It wasn’t like I invited him here. He showed up unannounced. This was not my fault. And I didn’t want to be rude. So we were eating dinner together. So what? It’s not like—
“I’m impressed.”
I jumped at the sound of Thatcher’s voice as he turned around to look at me.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Oh. Me? Uh-huh. Just a little jittery. I drank too much coffee today.”
He smiled, and I tried not to notice the dimple in his left cheek. “The site’s nice,” he said. “Real nice.”
“Thanks.”
I fumbled around in my mind for something else to say. But before I could think of anything, he stood and walked over to the counter, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows.
“This pizza ain’t gonna make itself,” he said.
“Um, can I help?”
“Yep.” He pulled a green pepper out of one of the bags and handed it to me. “Chop this.”
“Sure.”
He pulled an onion out, too. “And this.”
Relieved to have something to do, I took it from him and pulled a cutting board from the cabinet under the sink. I chopped the vegetables meticulously, concentrating hard and making an effort to keep from looking up.
“You looked good,” he said.
I stopped chopping and glanced at him. He was stretching a ball of pizza dough and smiling down at me.
“In the boots, I mean. They fit okay?” He tossed the dough into the air and caught it with practiced ease.
I nodded. He was doing it again; making me nervous. I needed to change the subject. “Where did you learn to do that?”
“I worked at a pizzeria all through college. Terrible pizza. Real bad. But I learned to do this”—he spun the dough around on his hand—“so it was worth it.”
“You went to college?”
“You sound surprised.” He gave the dough another toss.
“I thought…”
“That I was nothing but a small town redneck?”
I laughed. “Maybe a little.”
“You don’t know a thing about me, do you, Boots?”
I looked back down at the cutting board.
“Well,” he said, “that’s why I brought the pizza.”
We got the pizza in the oven, and the timer went off a few minutes after the rain stopped. I cut the pizza while Thatcher toweled off the patio chairs so we could sit outside. “Five questions,” he said once we were seated and ready to eat.
“What?”
“Ask me any five questions.” He pulled a slice of pizza from the center of the table and placed it on my plate. “But I get to plead the fifth to two of ’em.”
“I don’t want to play,” I said.
It was a lie. I ached to learn more about him. But that in itself bothered me. I wasn’t supposed to be interested in learning more about this guy. I was supposed to be in love. With Logan. Scratch that, I was in love with Logan. And I wasn’t going to lead Thatcher on by playing his little game. I would get through this dinner, get him out the door, and start packing my bags because any minute, my phone would ring. Any minute, my life would get back on track.
“Oh come on,” he said, “it’ll be fun. I already know all about you, Boots.”
“Don’t you ever call anyone by their actual name? Is that so hard?”
“You don’t like me calling you Boots?” He looked at me with feigned innocence.
I tried to stand my ground, but his expression was so playful I couldn’t stop my lips from turning up into a smile. “Call me whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does, Boots.”
I rolled my eyes. “And you don’t know all about me, by the way.”
“I know work’s a touchy subject. And I know your boyfriend’s a fool.”
“He is not.”
“Did he call yet?”
I took a bite of pizza to avoid answering the question.
“Thought so,” he said.
“I hate that expression almost as much as ‘I told you so.’ They’re pretty much the same thing.”
He nodded. “Noted. Go on. Ask me anything.”
“I don’t see the point of this.”
“The point is getting to know one another.”
“That’s what I mean. I don’t see the point in getting to know one another. I’m leaving. Maybe as soon as tomorrow.”
“I think you should stay,” he said.
>
I opened my mouth to respond, but he gazed at me with such intensity I looked away. Those eyes…
Eat your pizza, Tess.
“Well, I can’t.” I took another large bite and busied myself with counting the trees in the distance.
“Be that as it may, tonight you’re here. So go on. Ask.”
I mulled it over as I chewed. He was right. We were here now. I tried to avoid him, but it didn’t work. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t wondered anything about him. There were lots of questions I could ask. At the very least, it would put me in the driver’s seat of this conversation, and I needed to stay in control. I needed to keep him from tying my stomach in knots with another one of his flirty comments. So maybe I would play along, but just to get this over with. Just to keep things light and kill some time before Logan called.
“Fine,” I said. “Here’s one. How did you get your name?”
“Thatcher was my mother’s maiden name. Easy. Next!”
“Not so fast.” It was getting dark out, so I walked over to switch on the twinkle lights, and then sat back down to face him. I propped up my feet on an empty chair and leaned back. “What about your middle name, Bartholomew?”
He laughed. “Don’t make fun. My father’s middle name was Bartholomew. He was named after my grandfather, so he went by his middle name to make things easier. Everyone called him Bart.”
“Bart, huh?”
He nodded. “It means son of the ground. Or trench. Or something like that.”
“Son of the ground.” I tilted my head and looked at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. All right, then… question number two.”
“Three. You already asked two.”
“No, I asked one. But you didn’t completely answer it. So I asked a follow-up.”
An amused smile spread across his face. “I thought you didn’t want to play.”
He was right. Without even meaning to, I started to let my guard down a little. I enjoyed talking to him, like before. It felt wrong somehow.
“I was kidding, Boots. Question number two.”
“I don’t think so. It’s getting late…”
“It is not. And you haven’t finished your pizza. Come on. Question two.”
I sighed. “Okay. Um… what are your parents like?”
He leaned forward and looked me in the eyes. He was closer now, and the skin on the back of my neck tingled, reminding me I needed to be careful. I pulled my feet from the chair and crossed my legs to keep some distance between us.
“I lost ’em both when I was ten.” He said it so matter-of-factly I wasn’t quite sure how to react. We sat there for a long moment, regarding one another and letting the words hang amongst the sounds of the crickets.
“I’m so sorry.” My face melted into a sympathetic frown.
He nodded.
“Jake and I lost our dad, too. But we were a lot older.” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. “It doesn’t compare. It was stupid of me to even mention.”
“No it wasn’t. I’m sorry, too.”
I picked up my napkin and folded it in half twice. “If you don’t mind me asking, who raised you?”
“My grandparents. Incredible people.”
“And you grew up around here?”
He nodded.
I looked around and noticed how the twinkle lights grew brighter as night fell.
“I’ve lost count of questions.” I let out a nervous laugh.
“We’ll count that as your second. Question number three.”
I tried to think of something less personal to ask. “What do you do for a living?”
He perked up. “Guess.”
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”
“I’m not answering until you’ve made at least three guesses.” He grabbed another piece of pizza and put it on his plate.
“Um… tractor salesman.”
He laughed a little and shook his head.
“Farmer,” I said.
“Nope.”
I put my finger to my lips and tapped it a few times. “Cow trainer.”
“Cow trainer?” He looked at me with a quizzical smirk.
“I don’t know what people do around here!”
“What makes you so sure I live around here?” He raised an eyebrow.
“You don’t live around here?”
“I’m from here, but I haven’t lived here for a long time.”
“Is that so?”
“Yep.” He clasped his hands together and placed them on the table. “Do you give up?”
“I give up.”
“I’m a professor.”
I had taken a swig of my drink and nearly choked on it. “Be serious!”
“I am being serious. I’m a professor.”
I searched his face for a hint of a joke, but he didn’t appear to be kidding.
“Told you that you don’t know anything about me.” He winked.
Darn him. Why did he have to be so… charming? I didn’t know what to say. But I did know I kind of wanted him to wink again.
“Well?” he asked.
“I… you got me. I’m at a loss.”
He laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Honest. I have a tweed jacket and everything. And I never say ‘ain’t’ in the classroom. Only when I come back around here.”
“Okay, Professor. So what do you teach?”
He put another slice of pizza on my plate. “Philosophy.”
“Really?”
“I never lie.” He paused for a moment. “Of course, that could be a lie. But it’s not.” He cocked his head to the side. “Or is it? What is the truth?”
“Wow. Philosophy humor. You must be serious.”
He shrugged.
“So,” I said, “tell me how one becomes a philosophy professor.”
“Well, I grew up around here, and around the time high school ended, I got the itch to leave and do something bigger. I went to school on the West Coast. Pre-law.”
“You wanted to be a lawyer?”
“At the time, I wanted to be a big shot. I wanted to have a life opposite from what I knew here. I didn’t necessarily want to be a lawyer.”
I nodded. “I see.”
“So I get to school, and I’m in my first philosophy class, and it sounds cliché, but I got hooked on it. Signed up for every class I could and never left. I became a teaching assistant, got my Master’s, stayed and got my Doctorate—”
“What?”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to call me Dr. James. Unless you want to.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” He raised a hand as if he were taking an oath.
“So you’re a professor.”
He nodded once. “I’m a professor.”
“A philosophy professor with a Southern accent.” I peered at him, looking him up and down as I took in this new information. “Huh. That is… extremely unexpected.”
“Good.” He lowered his chin and smiled. “I like to be a little mysterious.”
The jittery feeling in my stomach was back. I looked away to buy some time and pull myself together. When I looked back, he was still watching me, comfortably sitting back with his ankle crossed over his knee.
“So, um…” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Did you know right away you wanted to teach?”
“Yep. Either that or walk around thinking about deep stuff. Sometimes I do both.” He grinned. “Next question?”
“See now I feel like I have to ask you something all deep and philosophical.”
He laughed. “Please don’t.”
“Hmm…” I picked up my water glass and wiped the sweat from its sides. “Next question. Have you ever been in love?”
For the first time since I met him, he seemed taken aback. It was a little too personal, maybe. He looked at me for a while, his gaze penetrating mine, and I could see him debating over how to answer.
“Fifth,” he said.
“What
?”
“I said I get to plead the fifth to two questions. I’m using one now.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Fifth.”
“You’re no fun.” I crossed my arms and shook my head.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m lots of fun. Aren’t you having fun, Boots?”
I pursed my lips to keep them from spreading into a smile. He was right. It was fun, being here with him.
“It’s a shame you don’t want to marry me.” He raised his eyebrows. “Because I am available. We could have this much fun all the time. Besides, I’ve got nothing better to do. At least, not until classes start up again in the fall. What do you say, Boots? You want to marry me?”
I did a double take. “What?”
“You heard me.” He rested an elbow on the back of his chair.
This is so my luck. Logan runs away at the fleeting thought of marriage, and this virtual stranger proposes after a week.
But we were just pretending, so it didn’t count. Still, there was something sweet about the moment; something endearing about the hopeful expression on his face as he waited for me to respond, even if it was in jest.
I laughed. “You’re funny.”
“Aw, come on. You already know I can cook. I don’t steal the covers, I never snore, and I’m not above holding your purse in public. What more do you need?”
“Well when you put it like that…” I traced my finger around the rim of my glass.
“I’m husband material. Oh. I almost forgot. I do laundry, too.”
“I do hate laundry… it’s an interesting offer. But come to think of it, I had a very similar conversation with this boy in my kindergarten class. So I may already be engaged. Let me check with him and get back to you.”
“Oh, I see how it is. You were a hot commodity in kindergarten, were you? A real heartbreaker, I bet.”
I shrugged. “I got my fair share of homemade valentines.”
“It doesn’t surprise me. Well, the offer’s on the table, Boots. If things fall through with the boyfriend. And this guy from kindergarten. I’ll be here all summer.”
Tess in Boots Page 7
