Chase took a waterproof blanket out of the basket and laid it on grass that was still damp from the previous night’s rain shower.
“Wow, you really come prepared,” she said.
“I’ve got a good crew.”
“You certainly do. I enjoyed watching you work,” came out of her mouth before she could hold the words inside.
His smile was like a warm caress over her skin. “I liked you being there.” He laughed and admitted, “I was trying not to show off.”
Amazed by how easily he could make her smile, she said, “Most guys don’t admit stuff like that.”
She half expected him to say something like, “I’m not most guys.” Instead, he surprised her yet again by asking, “So, what do you do?”
He was being so careful with her. She felt it in every glance, every word. Even now, when he could so easily have asked her where she was from or why she was running, he was getting to know her another way instead. Just as he hadn’t touched her without her permission last night. It was as if there was a silent agreement between them—he wouldn’t push too far or get in too deep unless she allowed it.
The big question was, would she dare let him in?
Chloe didn’t have an answer. How could she, when she was afraid to even acknowledge the question?
He handed her a gourmet sandwich full of goat cheese and grilled yellow and orange bell peppers, and as she took it from him, she said, “Well, most recently, I’ve been waitressing.”
“But what do you like to do?”
Most people would have stopped at her day job. But not Chase. He was truly interested. And that honest interest went a long way toward shoving aside her reluctance to talk about herself.
She paused before answering, “I make quilts.”
People never knew what to make of that. Most assumed it was a hobby. Others just thought it was plain weird or boring. Men, without exception, dismissed it as just another housewife craft. Chase, however, gave her a sincerely interested look.
“Tell me more.”
Downplaying it like she usually did, she said, “I like seeing how fabrics come together in patterns.”
“I don’t know much about the quilting world,” he said, “but I’ve photographed a few quilt shows and art quilts for various publications, and what I’ve learned about technique and the skill that’s involved in making them has been really interesting. I’d love to know more. When did you start?”
Chloe rarely had a chance to wax on about her love for quilting. Not since she’d been a member of a quilting guild years and years ago. She missed those women—and their shared passion—terribly.
Which was probably why she actually found herself telling Chase, “I started quilting when I lost a close friend from college in a car accident. She had been so passionate about it. Her mom actually owned a store in town. It was the only way I could think of to keep up my connection to her. And it gave me something else to think about—the motion of my hands and the needle, the patterns of fabric and shape, the building of something that I could create. Sometimes I can almost feel her watching me from up above with a smile on her face.”
“I’m sure she is.”
Chloe started at Chase’s words. Had she really just said all of that to him? Somehow he had gotten her to talk about her passion for quilting—a subject that would have put nearly every guy on the planet to sleep. But he wasn’t snoring yet. And she found herself wanting to tell him more about herself, more than just her love for quilting.
She wasn’t at all comfortable acknowledging that Chase had just become the exception. And that it had felt so good to share herself with someone who was really listening. Not when she knew that she was being stupid, letting herself think that this fantasy of sitting with a gorgeous guy on a hilltop in Napa Valley had anything to do with her real life.
It didn’t.
She put down her sandwich and made herself face him, but before she could say anything, he said, “Uh-oh. That’s not a good look.”
She wasn’t going to smile. There was no place for grinning when she needed to set him straight, when she was about to make her position on the two of them perfectly clear.
“Why are you being so nice to me, Chase?”
“I like you.”
The glow his words caused was too bright. Too warm. Forcing herself to blot it out, she said, “You don’t know me.”
“I’m starting to.”
No pause. No smooth words. No trying to charm her into agreeing with him. Didn’t he realize just how much harder his honest responses were making this for her?
“Is this what you do?” she asked.
“What am I doing?”
“You keep helping me, making me breakfast, asking Jeremy to be nice to me all day.”
He frowned, and she could see that he was confused. “Is there something wrong with wanting to make you smile?”
Oh. Wow. Why did he have to say that?
She couldn’t think of any other man who’d simply wanted to make her smile. Not even the man she’d married. Especially not the man she’d married.
Frustrated with herself for being so soft—so easy to turn to goo—she made herself come at him one more time with, “I get it if you’re into saving people, but—”
“I’m not a saint, Chloe.”
His low voice cut her accusation off in midstream, and she found herself unable to look away from his serious expression.
“I’ll always take care of my family,” he continued, “but I’ve never gone out looking for women who need to be saved. And even though I hope you’ll soon trust me enough to tell me what happened to you, trying to boost my own ego by saving you is not why I asked you to stay.”
Feeling like a big jerk for doing anything and everything she could think of to try to keep herself from doing something really, really stupid like falling for him, she said, “Look, Chase, you really have been nice.” Despite having been slow to hand her a towel last night, she silently amended with a flush. “But, despite how great you’ve been—” she purposefully left off a reminder as to what she’d been doing in the bathtub the night before “—we’re not going to…well…you know.”
Ugh. She wasn’t used to having conversations like this.
She half expected—half wanted—him to tell her she was wrong. That they were, in fact, most definitely going to end up doing well-you-know if she stuck around much longer.
Instead, his expression grew even more serious. “Earlier, when we were out in the vineyard, when I asked you to stay, you didn’t want to. But I didn’t let up until you finally gave in.” He ran a hand through his hair, clearly upset with himself. “I would never want to force you to do something you don’t want to do, Chloe. I don’t ever want to take something from you that you don’t want to give me.”
This was the perfect opening. It was her chance to tell him she’d never had any intention of staying, to make it clear that there was not going to be any further connection between them, and that it was time for her to be moving on.
So then, why did she find herself saying, “You didn’t force me to stay. I wanted to stay.”
The pure truth of that statement resonated within her solar plexus. Because it turned out the truth didn’t care if she wanted it to be true, or not.