Читать книгу Sunrise Cabin - Stacey Donovan - Страница 11

chapter six

Dylan yawned as he pulled into the last parking spot at Dolce Café and Bakery, his nephews Connor and Noah in the back seat. The place was apparently even more popular on Saturdays. Since the time he’d run into Paige there, he’d been back four times.

He wasn’t looking for her, exactly. No. It turned out the café was a good place to caffeinate and catch up on emails before he went into the office.

Anyway, he should probably give up on the idea of seeing her again. It had been, what, two weeks ago now?

“Why are we going here first?” Connor asked.

“Because your uncle is in desperate need of coffee.”

That was true, anyway. He’d stayed till around one a.m. at the office the night before, updating a presentation, immediately scrapping the update after getting new information from Elaine, and then making a new set of changes.

When he’d gotten home, he’d taken a while to unwind, the way he sometimes did when he worked late. He’d watched a couple of episodes of a TV show before going to bed, which he regretted now. The show hadn’t even been that good. Depressing, too. He always teased Dee for watching Hallmark movies, but maybe she was on to something.

Despite the late night, Dylan had picked up his nephews at the appointed time, and he gave himself a lot of credit for that.

“You always need coffee,” Noah declared as they got out of the car.

“That’s right, buddy.”

They went inside and he quickly scanned the café. His gaze stopped briefly on a blonde woman at the counter, hunched over her phone. Not Paige. He felt a foolish jab of disappointment as he got in line.

Connor asked, “Can I get a cupcake?”

Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you wanted cider donuts at the orchard.”

“I could get both.”

“Ha. Your mother would kill me.”

Connor straightened. “Miss Reynolds!” Dylan looked up, startled, as Connor trotted over toward someone. A blonde woman in a bright blue sweater…

Holy smokes. It was Paige. And Connor knew her? She met Dylan’s gaze and her mouth fell open.

Connor reached her side, and she beamed down at him. “Hi there! How are you?” Dylan got out of line and walked up to her with Noah.

Paige’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion. The sweater brought out the blue in her eyes, bright as an October sky.

“You’re not Connor’s dad.”

“Uh, no. Uncle.” He found himself short of breath. “I’m his mom’s sister—her brother.” He didn’t usually trip over his tongue like this. A dozen times a week, he made calls to important clients. Even when they asked him questions that he didn’t, strictly speaking, know the answers to, he didn’t stumble.

“Connor was in my class last year.” She looked to Noah. “And you’re his little brother, right?” Noah nodded.

“She was my favorite teacher,” Connor told Dylan.

“I’ll bet.” He said it without thinking, a little more emphatically than necessary, and her eyes widened.

Connor asked, “How do you know her?”

“We met here a little while back,” Dylan replied, without quite being able to take his eyes off Paige. Again he imagined a boyfriend. Any moment, a man would probably come up and put a proprietary arm around her waist.

She said, “I’m kind of addicted to the pumpkin spice lattes here.”

“We’re going to pick our own pumpkins,” Noah told her. He was gazing up at her, clearly smitten.

“Wow. That sounds like so much fun!”

“It’s a place called Happy Harvest Farms,” Connor explained. “You can pick your own apples off the trees, and they have cider donuts.”

She nodded. “I’ve been meaning to go there! I tried to get someone to go with me, but they said no.”

“You should dump him,” Dylan said lightly.

Her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh, it wasn’t—it was my best friend. There’s no him.”

No boyfriend. She was single. This simple bit of information buzzed through him. She’d let him know that on purpose, too.

She turned to Connor again. “You know Miss Garza?”

Connor nodded. “I wanted to be in her class. But I got Mrs. Goff.” He made a face.

“Mrs. Goff is a good teacher, too,” Paige said in what sounded like an obligatory tone.

Connor shrugged, clearly unconvinced. “Why didn’t Miss Garza go with you?”

“I tried to talk her into going, but she’s very busy lately. She’s planning a wedding, and it’s very complicated.”

Connor screwed up his face. “Why?”

“Right now, they’re having some disagreements about flowers.” She cast an amused glance at Dylan.

He shook his head. “What a hassle. Everyone should just go to the courthouse.”

Her expression softened. “Oh, I don’t think that. I mean it doesn’t need to be big or expensive. At all. But it should be someplace special. Because finding someone you love enough to spend the rest of your life with, that’s amazing.”

“I—see what you’re saying.” He’d been talking to this girl for two minutes, and they were discussing true love. How did that happen?

She said with a laugh, “I didn’t mean to make a speech.”

Noah grabbed his wrist and tugged. “Let’s get apples!” Dylan didn’t blame him for being antsy. They’d been standing there in the middle of a coffee shop for a little while now.

“Have you ever had apples you picked yourself before?” she asked Noah. He shook his head. “They taste so much better than apples from the store.”

“You could go with us,” Connor said.

Awesome idea. Maybe having the boys around wasn’t so bad. He doubted she’d take them up on such a spontaneous suggestion, though, so he gave her a graceful out. “Miss Reynolds probably has other things she wants to do today. Though she’s definitely invited,” he added, as if that weren’t one-hundred-percent obvious.

“I’d love to,” she said, surprising him.

It took him a moment to remember it was his turn to talk again.

“Great! Uh, why don’t we give you a ride? We can drop you off back here later. That way we won’t get separated.” And that way, they’d have a lot more time to get to know one another.

“It’s better for the environment, too.”

“Yes, exactly.” That hadn’t been on his mind, but the fact that she thought of it pleased him. “Let’s go.”

“Did you want to get a coffee first?”

Right. He’d come here for coffee. In fact, until he’d seen her, he’d been pretty sure he couldn’t stay alert behind the wheel without it. He felt wide awake now, though, and his heart seemed to be beating at a brisk pace without the aid of caffeine. “Oh yeah, definitely. And I’ll get your PSE.”

“My what?”

“PSL,” he corrected himself. Pumpkin spice latte. He’d let a work term slip in there. She wanted coffee and whipped cream and spices, not a public sector enterprise. “Sit down, I’ll get in line.”

Smooth, he thought as he walked away. Get it together, Cain.

In the car, Paige chatted with the boys, and he and Paige talked, too. “A couple of months ago I ran a half marathon that went up this hill,” he commented at one point. “This was the last mile.” Was he trying to impress her? Of course he was.

She scrunched up her shoulders. “That’s thirteen miles, right? That hurts to even think about.”

Farther out in the country, they came upon a hand-painted wooden sign that read “Welcome to Happy Harvest Farms!” Apples and pumpkins with smiling faces surrounded the words.

Dylan found a place to park in the grassy fields that served as parking lots. From the backseat, Connor said, “Awww! There aren’t any apples on the trees.” As Dylan shut off the car, he looked in the direction of the boy’s gaze. Sure enough, the nearby line of trees held no fruit, although small piles of half-rotten apples lay in the grass beneath them.

Paige said, “I bet when we walk a little farther, we’ll find trees with lots of apples.”

He appreciated her optimism. He didn’t even care about the apple picking, but both Paige and his nephews apparently did, and he hoped he hadn’t devoted part of his day to something that would disappoint them. Okay, he was more concerned about Paige. If his nephews had been disappointed, he would’ve chalked it up to a lesson about how you didn’t always get what you want and then taken them bowling or something.

They walked up the hill toward a wooden building with a sign out on the front that read “Country Store.” On tables out in front, piles of apples, gourds, and vegetables gleamed in the sun. The smell of cider doughnuts filled the air. Inside the store, Dylan approached the woman behind the counter.

“Hi!” she said. “How can I help you?”

“How does this work? Picking apples.”

“You grab a basket there.” She pointed to where they were stacked in the corner. “We sell them by the peck, the half peck, or the quarter peck. You fill it up and bring it back here to pay.”

“What’s a peck?” Connor asked.

“Oh, it’s usually around thirty, thirty-five apples,” the woman said. “Here’s a map of our different varieties. The Red Delicious are pretty much gone.” She shrugged. “Though honestly, they’re my least favorite. We’ve still got everything else.”

Dylan thanked her and then studied the photocopied hand-drawn map. “What kind of apples do you want?” he asked Paige and the boys. “They’ve got Golden Delicious, Jonathan, McIntosh, Honeycrisp, Cortland, and Granny Smith.”

“What’s the difference?” Connor asked.

“I have no idea,” Dylan said. “Except I’m pretty sure Golden Delicious are yellow.”

“I like red,” Noah said.

“Tell you what,” Paige said. “Let’s get a few of all of them.”

Connor grabbed one of the big baskets. “No,” Dylan said. “You each get a small one.”

“Do you mind waiting a minute?” Paige asked. “I’m going to get a couple of things.”

“Yeah, no problem. What are you getting?” He moved closer to see the jars in her hands.

“Red clover honey.” She showed him. “I bought this from their stand at the farmer’s market a few months ago. It’s really good. And jalapeño jelly.”

“I never heard of that. Is it really hot?”

“Only a little spicy. I love it,” she said. After she paid for the jars and tucked them into her big purse, they grabbed baskets and headed out toward the closest grove. The autumn air was cool enough that he was glad he’d worn a sweater, and the trees and the wide-open spaces made him feel a little freer.

“Sometimes I forget how much I like to be outside,” he said. He was glad Connor and Noah had wanted to come here, that they weren’t the kind of kids who only wanted to stare at screens. He’d loved being outdoors when he was their age. There had been a pond not far from his grandparents’ cabin, and he’d walk around it sometimes looking for frogs. There hadn’t been many, but once in a while, he’d see one before it hopped into the water with a splash.

“Isn’t it great? Especially on a day like today.” She waved an arm at the trees behind her. “The sign says these are Jonathans. All I know is, they’re mostly red.”

As they approached the closest tree, the smell of the ripe apples, both on the tree and lying on the ground, made Dylan want to grab one and eat it right there. He’d never thought about apples being tempting before, but he’d only had them from the grocery store, uniform in size, chilled, and waxed. Walking in a sunny orchard was a very different experience. Apparently, he wasn’t the only person who’d had the urge to eat one on the spot, because a few browning cores lay in the grass along with the fallen apples.

Noah gave a little shriek. “A bee!”

“There are lots of them out here,” Paige said pleasantly. “They pollinate the trees in the spring. We wouldn’t have apples without them.” She was such a teacher. Noah looked uncertain, and Paige added, “If you leave them alone they’ll leave you alone. They’d rather eat apples than sting you.” She darted a friendly glance toward Dylan.

Well, he was tempted, definitely, and by more than fruit. I’m going to ask this girl out. It surprised him. This wasn’t at all part of his plans, and changes in plans unsettled him, but he knew he was going to do it.

“I can’t reach any of them,” Connor said, stretching up his hand to demonstrate. “I have to climb the tree.”

“You don’t have any other choice,” Dylan agreed.

“I’m going to climb too!” Noah ran over.

Dylan told Paige, “This is the real reason they wanted to come. To climb trees.”

“Be careful,” she called over to them. Then, to him, she said, “I don’t want him to break an arm like last year.”

“Right,” Dylan said. Connor hadn’t been happy when the injury had kept him from playing soccer, though he’d enjoyed showing off all the signatures on his cast. “He broke it on the playground swings, right?”

Paige nodded. “I heard he swung as high as he could and then jumped out. I think he was showing off.”

“My nephew?” he asked in mock disbelief. “No way.”

Paige walked up closer to them. “I kind of want to climb one myself.”

“Yeah?” he asked, amused. “Well, you’re dressed for it today.” Her worn jeans fit her curves perfectly. He kind of wanted to watch her climb a tree. “The last time I saw you, you were wearing a dress with pumpkins on it.”

She grinned. “I learned how to sew a couple of years ago. I make some dresses with patterns like that because the kids like them.”

“That’s dedication.”

She shrugged. “Or…maybe teaching gives me a good excuse to wear dresses with dinosaurs on them.”

“Do you need an excuse?” he asked. She laughed. “Well, you’re still colorful. Look at those shoes.” She wore bright yellow canvas sneakers. “It’s like you’re walking on sunshine.”

“I am,” she said, and then looked away.

They decided their next stop would be the Golden Delicious grove—Paige’s favorite, she said—and they headed down the dirt road past families with small children. To anyone else, they probably looked like a married couple with kids. It probably should’ve disturbed him more than it did. Paige was easy to talk to, and the morning felt magical, a temporary escape into another world where he didn’t have to work so hard or worry so much.

“You like being a teacher?” he asked.

“I do. Although the first couple of years were rough.”

He hadn’t expected that. “How come?”

“Oh, I had a lot to learn. About how to set up the classroom and plan the lessons. And I wasn’t good at dealing with kids who misbehaved. I hadn’t learned my no-nonsense voice yet.”

That didn’t surprise him at all. She seemed naturally sweet. “Do it,” he said.

“What?”

“Let me hear your no-nonsense voice.”

“Nooo.” She waved him off.

“Oh, come on.”

“Dylan, I told you no.”

He stopped short. He’d been joking around, but somehow, he’d offended her.

“That was my no-nonsense voice,” she said quickly.

He laughed. “That was pretty good.”

Her smile faded. “So what about you?”

“I definitely have a no-nonsense voice.”

“No, I meant do you like being a…was it an investment banker?” While he considered how to answer this, she said, “You know, I’m sorry about what I said before.”

“What do you mean?”

She winced. “About your job sounding awful.”

“I wasn’t offended.”

“Hey, stop!” Connor said. “We’re passing the Golden Delicious.” He walked from one tree to another. “The only ones left are way up there.” He scrambled up into the branches.

“These really are my favorites,” Paige said. “I’m going to climb. Are you?”

“Uh. No.” She was serious about this?

“Why not?”

Because I’d look ridiculous. “I’ve never climbed a tree in my life.” She was clearly unsure whether to believe him, and the way she scrunched up her face was adorable. “Besides, those branches aren’t that thick. I’d probably break one.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” she said, but he caught her giving him a quick look up and down. Then she said, “Watch my purse,” and dropped it at his feet. She sauntered over to the next tree and swung herself up to the lowest branch. When she climbed to the next one, her foot slipped on a branch, and she squeaked. Dylan rushed closer. She regained her footing and laughed, looking down at him.

“You’re making me nervous up there,” he said lightly.

“You’re making me nervous.”

What did she mean by that? She tossed one apple to him, and then another.

When everyone’s baskets were full, they headed toward the pumpkin patch, but then took a detour to explore the corn maze. The boys trotted ahead of them. “Connor, don’t get too far away,” Dylan called after him. “And don’t lose your brother!”

“I won’t!”

Paige said, “It’s nice of you to take them places.”

“I should do it more often.” The last thing he’d expected that day was to be walking with Paige among cornstalks that towered over his head. He smiled. “I’m glad I did today.”

“Me too,” she said.

If he was going to ask, now was the time. “So, you want to go out with me?”

Her eyes sparkled. That was a good sign. He liked his chances, or he wouldn’t have asked, but one never knew.

“Go out with you where? And when?”

“Uh, I hadn’t gotten that far yet.” They both laughed. “Dinner, next Saturday night? I’ll pick you up.”

She bit her lip. “You know…” Was she backing out of it, after all? “I don’t really know you. I don’t even know your last name.”

“Oh. Cain. It’s Dylan Cain.” He didn’t blame her for being hesitant. There were a lot of creeps out there, and while he hoped he didn’t seem like one, there was no way for her to know for sure. Maybe his suggesting to pick her up had set off an alarm in her head. “We could meet for lunch.” If she drove herself, in broad daylight, she might feel better about it.

Her shoulders relaxed. “I’d like that. Sorry to be weird.”

“You weren’t. It’s fine.”

“Well, here,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’ll put my number in your phone.”

Yes. She trusted him that much, at least. He pulled up his contact list and then handed the phone to her. As she typed in her name, he asked, “Is next Saturday good?”

She smiled. “It’s perfect. I don’t have much of a lunch break during the week.”

“What do you like for lunch?”

“Um, places with breakfast food? But I mean, anything’s fine.”

“Breakfast for lunch is great. I think some people call that brunch.” She rewarded him with a laugh.

“Uncle Dylan!” Connor peeked around the corner. “We went that way, but it was a dead end. Are you coming?”

“Where’s your brother?” Dylan asked. He hadn’t been paying attention to them at all, and the last thing he needed was to lose him in a maze.

“He’s right here.” Connor gestured as Noah came into view.

“Just a minute, you guys,” Dylan told them.

Paige gave the phone back to him along with her own. “Give me yours, too.”

With a great sense of satisfaction, he complied. After he handed it back to her, she fiddled with the phone for a moment, then held it up and took a photo of him.

“Hey,” he said in mock protest.

“I need your face next to your name.” Her mouth twisted. “You don’t really mind, do you?”

He’d already pulled up the camera on his phone. “Not as long as I get to take one of you.” She shook her head, and he insisted, “Fair is fair.”

“I hardly have any makeup on,” she mumbled.

“Paige, come on,” he said, more seriously. “You look beautiful.”

Her expression softened and her mouth curved upward. He snapped the picture.

“Uncle Dylan, let’s gooo,” Connor said.

Okay, the kid was killing the moment. But Dylan couldn’t complain. If it hadn’t been for his nephews, he might never have met up with Paige again, and this had been the most fun he’d had in a long, long while.