“Remember my family?” he asked, his eyes a dark blue now. “We eat together every Sabbath Day. If I don’t show up…they’ll be all over me.”

  “Then we’ll eat at your house—farm—wherever you guys eat, and then go to my daddy’s.” Gretchen grinned up at him, noting the shock as it marched across his face. “Oh, I see that’s worse.”

  “Not worse,” he said, backing up as she stepped forward. “I’m just tryin’ to imagine the hullaballoo if I show up with a woman to Sunday dinner.”

  “Because you haven’t dated in five years.”

  “Right.”

  “But you told your mama about me.”

  “And Rissa.”

  “And Travis.”

  “Lee knows too.”

  “So no hullaballoo,” she said, stumbling over the word. She laughed and added, “I don’t know anyone who talks like that.”

  “Whatever,” Will said, his arm tight around her. “Everyone in Texas talks like that.”

  They laughed together as they went up the steps, and Gretchen paused right in front of her perfect mint door with the very January wreath. She put both hands on Will’s chest and leaned into him. “Thank you for tonight, Will. I had a lot of fun.”

  “Me too.” He smiled at her, and his eyes dropped to her mouth. Oh, yes, he was going to kiss her. Excitement built in Gretchen’s stomach, and her eyes drifted closed.

  The wisp of his breath touched her cheek, and then a horn filled the air. A truck came roaring into her driveway, startling her and Will apart, the horn blaring as the lights illuminated them and the house.

  “What in the world?” Will asked.

  Gretchen started toward the steps, because she knew who owned this truck. “It’s my neighbor,” she said. “Something’s wrong.” She flew down the steps in her long skirt, already calling, “LaMar? Is Rachel all right?”

  An older gentleman got out of the truck on the driver’s side, and he said, “She’s fine. We’re fine.”

  Gretchen’s heart wouldn’t stop sprinting. Neither would her feet, and she ran past Will’s truck to LaMar. “What’s going on then?”

  He reached back into the truck and pulled out a box. “Elvis got hurt at our place. We’ve been takin’ real good care of him, and I’ve been watchin’ for you to get home. I didn’t want you to go in and be worried he wasn’t there.”

  He handed her the box with Elvis cowering in it. He wore a wrap around his front right paw, and Gretchen couldn’t believe this was what had interrupted her first kiss with Will. Her brother’s bothersome cat.

  She looked up at LaMar, feeling so out of sorts. “Thank you,” she managed to say.

  He beamed at her, tipped his hat, and got back in his truck. She took Elvis up to the porch, where Will had waited for her. “My neighbor,” she said. “His wife has some health problems, so I thought it might be her.” She held up the box. “It was Elvis instead. He gets out and into things he shouldn’t.”

  She sighed as she opened the door and put Elvis inside. He yowled at her like that wasn’t the treatment he expected, but Gretchen’s exhaustion wove through her now too.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, stepping into Will’s arms again. The moment was broken though, and she couldn’t call it back now. “I’m keeping him for my brother as he goes through this hard thing in his life. His wife left, and he’s got the three kids all alone. I guess Elvis was too much for him.”

  “Hmm, I can see why.”

  Gretchen smiled up at the cowboy. “I’ll see you Sunday?”

  “I can’t wait,” he said, his lips right at her ear. He touched them to her neck and stepped back. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Mm.” She walked to the edge of the porch and watched him descend the steps and then stride toward his truck. She couldn’t believe she’d caught his attention, and while he had a gruff exterior, she knew more about the man underneath all of that now.

  And she sure did like him.

  “Meow,” Elvis said pathetically, and Gretchen sighed as she turned back toward her house. She went inside and closed the door, then bent to pick up the tabby cat.

  “You silly thing,” she scolded him. “You interrupted my kiss with Will.” How embarrassing was that? Her injured cat took precedence over kissing the handsome cowboy. Max was going to have some cat-tax to pay, that was for sure.

  Humiliation dove through her when she remembered how she’d run from Will—and all for a cat who probably wasn’t injured that badly?

  So embarrassing.

  She took Elvis down the hall to her bedroom, where he limped to the empty side of the bed.

  “You’re going to have to help me brainstorm a new plan to get him to kiss me on Sunday,” she said pointedly, glaring at the feline. “So start thinking.”

  Gretchen reached to untie her apron, her hands sticking to all the fabric on her shirt too. “Okay,” she said with a huge sigh. Her heart raced, and her eyes darted around the candy kitchen. “I have to go.”

  At the same time, she couldn’t go. Not with caramel-like-glue on every surface she could see. She and Jon had been making caramels for hours now for an event this weekend. She looked at the man, her eyes wide. She needed his permission to go before she could actually do it.

  “Date with Will Cooper tonight,” he said, giving her a smile that didn’t seem very smiley.

  “Yes,” she said, still fumbling with the tie on the back of her apron. Her mother used to make her aprons that went on like smocks, and she could unsnap them from around her neck in two seconds flat. In moments like this, Gretchen missed her mother powerfully.

  “He hasn’t canceled?” Jon asked, and Gretchen stopped playing with the tie.

  She reached for a roll of paper towels and a bottle of stainless steel cleaner. “Not yet.”

  “Because he did on Sunday, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “His mama is real sick.” She shot Jon a glance. “I understand that. I had to spend yesterday and Monday with my daddy, taking care of him.”

  Jon sighed and finished wrapping the last batch of caramels. He tossed them by the wax-paper-wrapped handful into the bin marked “vanilla” and sighed. “I know, Gretchen. I’m sorry.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked, glad the more difficult flavors of black licorice and cinnamon had been done for hours. “Besides me wanting to run out and leave you to clean the kitchen.”

  “Which I agreed to do,” he said. “I booked this event, and you stayed to help me with the caramels.” A hint of redness started to creep into his face. “I just think…this Will Cooper better be good to you.” He turned away from her and flipped on the water at the industrial sink that ran along the back wall.

  Gretchen stared at him for a moment, not quite sure how to digest his words. “He is,” she said, her voice a bit high-pitched. “We’re going to The Culinary Cabin. Remember that place I told you to take Diana?”

  “Yeah,” Jon said.

  “You never did.”

  “I couldn’t get her to go on a second date with me.” Jon turned around and gave Gretchen a glaring look. “So no, I never did.”

  Gretchen blinked at this man she’d hired a couple of months ago. He’d become her friend at Sweet Water Taffy, and she’d always gotten along with him.

  “Never mind,” he said. “You should go so you’re not late for your date.” He started scrubbing the counter in front of him as something strange shot through Gretchen.

  Had she offended him by talking about her excitement to meet up with Will tonight? She’d told him about Will’s difficult Sunday too, and maybe she shouldn’t have. Perhaps she needed to simply treat him like an employee and not her friend.

  She wasn’t quite sure how to do that, but she did manage to untie her apron and hang it on the hook beside the sink. She washed up too, the water too hot but her mind circling too much for her to care that much.

  After driving home without noticing anyone else on the road or if she came to a complete stop at any of the intersections, she dashed up the front steps and through the mint green door. “Elvis,” she called, hoping the cat was here. She didn’t want to leave out the fresh food if it didn’t get eaten. If she did that, sometimes she got wild animals coming in through the cat door that led onto the back porch.

  The cat appeared at the end of the hallway, and he’d probably been snoozing on her bed. “Come eat,” she told him, and she flew through putting together his dinner. He got chicken, carrots, and peas tonight, which almost looked like a chicken pot pie without the gravy.

  Gretchen very nearly tossed the bowl on the floor in her haste to get down the hall and out of her candy-making clothes. She hadn’t checked her phone in hours, and Jon’s question about Will canceling tonight rang through her head. She’d said he hadn’t, but in truth, he could’ve but she hadn’t seen it yet.

  She stepped out of the black pants she wore to work, searching her pockets for her phone. It wasn’t there, and panic ran through her. She felt torn in a hundred different directions, and she started to remove her shirt at the same time she ran back toward the hall, as if her device would be lying on the floor out there.

  It wasn’t, and Gretchen went into the kitchen just as her phone chimed. She’d left it next to the cutting board where she’d chopped the cooked carrots into uneven chunks for Elvis. The cat still chomped through his meal, and Gretchen swiped on her phone at the same time her doorbell rang.

  Fear paralyzed her, and only her neck worked as she looked away from her phone and toward the door.

  That couldn’t be Will already. Could it?

  In the living room, the grandfather clock she’d brought over from her parents’ house after her mother’s death started to sing.

  It was six o’clock, and that meant the person on the other side of the front door definitely was Will.

  Gretchen flew herself into gear, taking her phone with her as she dashed past the clock, which had started its march toward the six dongs it would eventually get through.

  After all, she couldn’t answer the door if she was undressed.

  “I mean, you could,” she said, flinging open her closet door. One day, she’d learn to lay out her date clothes before she left for work. “But I’m not sure that’s the message you want to send.”

  11

  Will stood on Gretchen’s front porch, the bouquet of flowers he’d driven to town to get starting to droop as his impatience grew. He’d already rung the doorbell twice, and he twisted around to look behind him for the fourth time.

  His truck sat behind Gretchen’s van in the driveway, so she had to be here. Right? He glanced to the left and then the right, but she owned enough land that he couldn’t see her neighbor’s houses.

  “What will you do about it anyway?” he asked himself as he faced the January wreath on her door again. His hand twitched to ring the doorbell again, but he fisted his fingers into his palm to stop himself from doing it.

  He took a step back and pulled his phone from his pocket, and he tapped a couple of times to get a call connected to Gretchen.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice made only of air. “I’m here, but I barely just got home, and I had to feed Elvis, and I’m not quite ready yet.”

  Will smiled, because he just liked the sound of her voice. “It’s fine,” he said, all of his annoyance gone now. “I can wait.”

  “The front door is open,” she said. “You can come in, and I’ll be right out.”

  Will wasn’t sure he wanted to do that, but he didn’t want to hang out on the porch holding this ridiculous bunch of roses either. He looked down at them, and said, “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  “I only need three minutes.”

  “Take your time.” He ended the call and turned back to the door. He did twist the knob and go inside just as Elvis jumped onto the back of the couch. He gave the cat a hat-tip and took a moment to look around Gretchen’s house.

  He hadn’t been inside until now, and it felt like a place she would live. The furniture was a dark bluish-gray, with plenty of pink and yellow pillows in the corners. The windows had matching curtains, and the living room in the front of the house where he stood, flowed right into the back of the house where the kitchen sat.

  Elvis gave him a cat-glare and proceeded to lick his jowls and then one of his paws.

  An island ran right behind the couch, and it held the kitchen sink. The fridge stood against the back wall, along with her range. She had a decent amount of counter space, and he expected to find a stack of mail or a vase of flowers or something sitting there.

  He found nothing. The counters were completely clean, except for a cutting board and knife right next to the kitchen sink in the island. A couple of pieces of abstract art hung on the walls in the living room, which had windows on two walls, and a grandfather clock ticked on his left right beside the hallway.

  There were no family pictures, and no knick-knacks. The TV sat dark, with the remote control lined up beneath it in a near ninety-degree angle.

  Will had no idea what he was dealing with here. He didn’t consider himself a huge slob or anything, but Gretchen didn’t even have a hook to hang her keys on anywhere.

  “Sorry.” Her voice preceded her down the hall, and Will lifted the flowers back to a position in front of him. She came into the kitchen, brushing her hand down the front of her blouse, which drew his attention there.

  The fabric flowed like silk, and it reminded him of the pale orange he’d find in the perfect sunset. She wore a pair of navy blue shorts that went all the way to her knee, and a pair of bright white tennis shoes sat on her feet.

  Will cleared his throat and stuck the flowers out a bit more. “Howdy, Gretchen.”

  She looked up at him, her bright eyes wide and filled with some emotion he couldn’t name. She took a moment to breathe, and he watched her visibly relax. “Evening, Will.”

  He stepped toward her, and they met in front of the clock. She clasped her fingers around the stems of the flowers as he leaned in and kissed her cheek. “You look fantastic tonight,” he said.

  “I’m pretty sure I’m still sticky from head to toe.” She stepped back, now beaming at him. “Thank you for these. They’re beautiful.” She inhaled the roses, her eyes drifting closed. She opened them and swatted Elvis away from the blooms. “Did you finish your dinner?”

  She went into the kitchen and bent to pick up the cat’s bowl. She put that in the sink with the cutting board and knife, doing it all one-handed while she held the roses. Then she got a vase down from the cupboard and looked at him.

  “Sorry I’m so late,” she said. “We won’t be late to The Cabin, I swear.”

  “It’s okay,” he said again. “Why were you late? I thought you left the shop at three on Wednesdays.”

  “Jon booked this big party on Saturday,” she said. “And he had to make five hundred caramels, so I stayed after to help him.” She arranged the flowers in the vase and lowered it into the sink to fill with water. “And wow, you can not imagine the mess. It’s a retirement party, and apparently this woman has a lot of friends who like black licorice caramel.” Gretchen shuddered, which made Will smile and then laugh.

  “You don’t like black licorice?” he asked.

  She looked at him as she turned off the sink and raised the vase out of it. “Does anyone?”

  “I mean, my daddy does.”

  “Yeah,” she said dryly, tugging a rose into a different position. “The generation older than us loves black licorice. They must’ve spoon-fed it to them in their baby cereal.” She stepped back and admired the flowers. “These are so lovely.”

  Will wanted to say she was the lovely one in the room, but he couldn’t. So he tucked his hands into his pockets and smiled at her as she came around the island and to his side. “Are you ready for this?” she asked.

  “I’ve been waiting over a week for it,” he said. “So I guess I better be, right?”

  She grinned up at him, and Will had a vision of leaning down and kissing her right there, right now. His brain froze, and Gretchen’s smile slipped. His eyes still worked, and he blinked.

  “What other kinds of caramels did you make today?” He could smell the sugar on her, and that only drove his desire for her higher.

  “Sea salt,” she said. “That’s my favorite.”

  “Mine too,” he murmured, going with her as she moved toward the front door. “Do you need to put Elvis away?” He paused and looked at the tabby, who gazed right back at him as if he could see inside Will’s head and knew he didn’t want to be interrupted by the neighbor when he dropped Gretchen off later tonight.

  “Oh, right,” Gretchen said. “Come on, Mister.” She unlooped her arm from Will’s and scooped Elvis into her arms with a yeowl from the feline. She bustled down the hall and a door closed a couple of seconds later. “There. Now he won’t be over bothering the Woodworths.”

  “Good news,” Will said. They reached the door, and he opened it. She stepped past him, and Will honestly felt like the luckiest man in the world to be going out with her again. “How’s your daddy?”

  He saw her shoulders rise and fall, and he caught her hand in his as he stepped to her side at the top of the steps. “You don’t have to say,” he said as gently as he could. “I just noticed you didn’t say anything about him in your texts over the past few days.”

  “He’s…okay,” Gretchen said. “I think he’s getting more and more stubborn with every day.” She gave him a brave smile. “What about your mama? Sunday was a bad day?”

  Will’s soul turned dark for a moment. He couldn’t imagine a day on the Earth without Mama in it, but he knew he’d have to endure such a thing, probably sooner rather than later. “She’s okay,” he said. “She had a real bad night on Saturday, and Daddy was up with her a lot. They were both really tired, and even Travis couldn’t get her out of bed.”