“That I believe. You would know best what goes where. Work space is intimate. It has to feel right.” She looked at him. “Not that you don’t know any of that.”
“Do you like the studio at the gallery?”
She had a small area in the corner. He and his brothers had taken over most of the rest of it.
“I do. There’s good energy. I like it best when the three of you are working. There’s a lot of creativity and the way you talk to each other is fun.” She grinned. “And you like it when I talk to Mathias and Nick. What did you call it? Background noise?”
“I meant that in the nicest way possible.”
“Uh-huh.” She opened her biscuit and spread butter on each half. “These are my favorite. Along with, you know, the fancy wine. The casserole is good, too.”
“There are cookies in the freezer. We can defrost them after dinner if you’d like.”
She winced. “I put on weight pretty easily. I should probably pass on the cookies.”
He started to say she looked good to him but stopped himself. Under their present circumstances, that might be best left unsaid, even though it was true.
Natalie was petite, with plenty of curves. She had the energy of a person four times her size, with an easy smile. He meant what he said—he always liked it when she was in the studio. She was a balancing force for his demons.
“You might be stuck for a couple of days,” he said instead. “We can save the cookies for another time.”
“Tempting me with bakery goods. I never would have guessed.”
Her eyes were big and brown, half-hidden behind her glasses, but still expressive. He realized he didn’t know anything about her, other than the fact that she’d started working at the gallery two years before.
“Where did you move from?” he asked.
“When I came here? Sacramento.”
“What made you move?”
Her expression was quizzical. “You don’t know?”
He shook his head.
“I thought everyone had heard my sad little story.” She smiled. “I was practically stood up at the altar.”
What? He hadn’t expected that. “You don’t seem upset.”
“It was a while ago and probably for the best. My mom warned me I came from a long line of women who were not lucky in love. I didn’t want to believe her, but I guess it’s true.” She sipped her wine. “Back in Sacramento, I was trying to make it as an artist and failing, so I took an office job and through that I met this guy—Quentin Jones.”
She paused dramatically and sighed. “He was very handsome and smooth. Just supercharming.”
Ronan felt a twinge of something he couldn’t name but he sure didn’t like how it felt. “And?”
“And we started going out. His family owned a couple of car dealerships. One in Sacramento and one in San Diego. I met his parents and they were so nice.” She looked at him. “I liked being a part of a family after losing my mom. When he proposed, I knew it was going to be wonderful. We had a plan. He was going to take over the San Diego dealership and I would run the front office. We’d get a little place of our own.”
Her voice sounded regretful.
“What about your art?” he asked. There was no way Natalie belonged in an office—not full-time. She was meant to be wild and creative, not cooped up.
“I thought being in love was more important, I guess. I’m not sure. When I was with Quentin, my art didn’t seem that important.” She frowned. “He wasn’t exactly encouraging about it, which I didn’t realize until later. Anyway, we planned our wedding here, in Happily Inc. A destination wedding with a princess theme.” She laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You’d make a very beautiful princess.”
“Thank you. I like to think so but one never knows. I sold pretty much everything I owned, packed up my clothes and drove to town to get ready for the wedding. Three days before the big event, Quentin called and broke up with me. He said he wasn’t sure anymore and his parents had never liked me and it wasn’t going to work.”
Ronan hadn’t expected a happy ending to her story—he knew Natalie wasn’t married—but he hadn’t expected that.
“He dumped you over the phone? What a jerk. Did he help cancel the wedding?” He held up a hand. “Never mind. I know the answer.”
Her mouth twisted. “Yeah, not so much with the cleanup. I was stuck doing everything and paying for most of it. It took me a full day to grasp what had happened. Then I had to scramble. What I hadn’t expected was how nice everyone was. Pallas only charged me her expenses to date at Weddings Out of the Box. In fact, everyone did that. I had to pay maybe thirty percent of what I owed, but it was still a lot. It wiped out my savings and left me with some credit card debt.” She sipped more wine. “A lot of credit card debt. But I was so surprised by how supportive everyone had been that I decided to just stay put until I figured out what I wanted to do next. Then I found the job with Atsuko at the gallery and a little apartment and here we are.”
He felt an odd flush of pride that his adopted town had come through for her, along with a very understandable need to find the ex-fiancé and smash in his face. Maybe he would take one of his brothers along so they could do a good job of teaching the asshole a lesson.
Natalie leaned toward him. “I’m fine and you’re sweet to be protective.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to. You looked all mean and scrunchy. Thank you.”
Scrunchy?
“I know,” she told him. “Not an expected compliment, but I mean it that way, all the same. Once I settled in Happily Inc, I realized that I had found here what I’d been looking for with Quentin.” She lowered her voice. “Family. If you don’t have one, you make one. At least, that’s what I learned. I have friends and my art and there are giraffes at the animal preserve just outside of town, which you know because your sister-in-law is the curator.” She shook her head. “Is that the right word?”
“I’m not sure someone can curate giraffes. At least not legally.”
She giggled. “Oh, wow, the wine is so going to my head.”
It had been a quarter of a glass. “I’m glad you’re not driving.”
“That would take a car.” She did a little dance in her seat. “I’m getting a red car. I can’t wait.”
“You have other criteria, don’t you? Other than the color?”
“No.” She sighed. “Okay, fine, yes, safety, but red. Red, red, red.”
“I’m going with you,” he muttered. “You aren’t allowed to go on a car lot alone.”
“Mr. Bossy Pants. Just like I said. Do you have any kids?”
He’d been swallowing and nearly choked on a piece of chicken. “No. Why do you ask?”
She drank more wine. “Kids are great. The unlucky-in-love thing is a serious drag, but just because I can’t have romantic love doesn’t mean I can’t have children, right?”
He cleared his throat against an imaginary tight collar. Somehow the conversation had gone in a direction he hadn’t expected. “Ah, sure.”
“Your family is pretty healthy. There aren’t any big diseases in every generation,