Handing some bills to the vendor, Bonnie accepted a bag of pretty little multicolored heirloom tomatoes in exchange. When she fumbled a bit with the new bag, Paul reached out to help. “Let me carry a couple of those sacks.”
He divested her of all but the smallest of the bulging bags before she could even respond. As he did, she smiled up at him—way up. She estimated him to be perhaps six feet three inches, in marked contrast to her own five feet three inches. The flat sandals she wore with her scoop neck mint top and summer print skirt gave her no extra height. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. How’s business at Bride Mountain Inn?” Paul asked as he shuffled with her through the throng to the next booth.
“The past few weeks have been hectic with June weddings,” she replied. “And July hasn’t slowed down much.” Trying to focus on her reason for being here, rather than the man who’d unexpectedly become her shopping assistant, she examined a crookneck squash in a display basket.
“Being busy with weddings is a good thing, right?”
“Absolutely.” Though she’d already bought so much, she couldn’t resist picking out a few squash.
“Those look good,” Paul said, nodding toward her selections. “I like squash, but I don’t know how to prepare them.”
“Oh, they’re easy to cook,” she assured him. Her momentary self-consciousness dissipated with this subject she could discuss comfortably. “Very versatile, baked, grilled, steamed or even raw in salads.”
She didn’t know if Paul had any interest at all in cooking, but he nodded attentively. “I like them all those ways. Just haven’t tried cooking them myself. Do you have time to help me select a few? I’ll look up some recipes online.”
“Of course.” Speaking briskly and casually, as she would with just anyone who’d asked for her help, rather than a man who happened to make her toes curl in her sandals, she gave him a quick lesson on checking the stems, skin and heft-weight for ripeness and freshness. She watched as he paid for four then stuffed them into his own market bag. A price tag still hung from one strap, making her suspect he’d purchased it when he’d arrived. It appeared to be almost empty.
Seeing the direction of her attention, he chuckled. “I guess you can tell I’m new at this sort of shopping. My daughter has been lecturing me lately about eating better, so I figured this was as good a place as any to buy a few healthy ingredients. I usually just throw bags of frozen vegetables in the microwave to eat with whatever meat I’ve cooked on the grill. Or I have takeout. But Cassie’s staying with me for the next few weeks until her wedding, so I’m trying to be a little more health-conscious when it’s my turn to cook.”
“You sound like my brother. If I didn’t cook dinner for him fairly often, he’d live on spaghetti with sauce from a jar, or grilled steaks and microwaved potatoes.”
Paul’s crooked smile was undeniably charming. “I’ve eaten more than my share of both those meals.”
Someone cleared her throat rather loudly, making Bonnie aware that she was blocking access to the squash. She’d completely lost track of where she was and what she’d been doing while she’d admired Paul’s smile. Murmuring a quick apology, she moved aside, followed again by Paul.
He motioned toward a little coffee shop near the market where several outdoor tables beneath colorful umbrellas invited a leisurely chat. “May I buy you a cup of coffee? Or do you have to rush back to the inn?”
She hesitated before answering. He’d given her the perfect excuse, but she really wasn’t in a hurry to get back. Rhoda and Sandy, her full-time and part-time housekeepers, were taking care of things back at the inn. Even during this busy season, Tuesdays were typically slower-paced days, giving Bonnie a weekly opportunity to escape for a few hours.
While there were advantages to living in the inn’s private basement apartment, it gave her the feeling sometimes of being at work 24/7. She’d made a promise to herself recently that she’d start going out more, cultivating a social life away from the inn and her siblings, out of the rut she’d fallen into during the past few years. A friendly coffee with one of the inn’s clients wasn’t exactly a groundbreaking departure from the norm, but it was a start. It didn’t hurt, of course, that this particular client was so very nice to look at across a table.
“I don’t have to rush back,” she said. “Coffee sounds good. Just let me put these bags in my car.”
He followed her to the parking lot where she’d left her dependable sedan and helped her stash her purchases. Then she accompanied him to the coffee shop, claiming a recently vacated outdoor table while he went inside to order. He returned carrying a black coffee for himself and the fat-free iced latte she’d requested in deference to the building heat of the day. She’d declined his offer of a snack, but he’d bought a cookie for himself.
“It’s oatmeal raisin,” he said with an appealingly sheepish grin as he unwrapped it. “That’s healthy, right?”
Because there didn’t seem to be an ounce of fat on his solid frame—something she had noticed more than once—she doubted his diet was as bad as he’d claimed earlier. “Sure,” she teased lightly. “Keep telling yourself that.”
He chuckled and took a big bite of the cookie, washing it down with a sip of his coffee. “I’ll make up for it at dinner tonight,” he said. “I’m eating with my daughter’s other family. Holly—my daughter’s mom—always cooks something fancy and healthy.”
Bonnie had briefly met Cassie’s mother, Holly Bauer, and her husband, Larry, at that first pre-wedding meeting back in May. As she remembered, the relationship between them all had been quite cordial.
“It’s nice that you and your ex-wife get along so well,” she commented somewhat tentatively. “We’ve dealt with some very awkward situations at a couple of weddings at the inn when exes refused to be seated near each other or to even acknowledge the other parent’s presence.”
“Holly and I were never married,” Paul admitted. “I was only eighteen and Holly not even quite that when Cassie was born—she’d skipped a grade to graduate a year earlier than most. We were the stereotypical high school sweethearts who slipped up on prom night, I’m afraid. We stopped trying to be a couple during our freshman year of college, though we’ve remained good friends.”
“I see.” She’d figured Paul looked young for his age, considering he had a twenty-one-year-old daughter, but now she knew he really was younger than she’d thought. Thirty-nine? Only eleven years older than her twenty-eight, rather than the fifteen years or more she’d estimated. “And still Holly became an attorney. Good for her.”
“Yeah. She refused to let one night’s bad decision derail her dreams. She had a lot of help from her family, and from me, and from my mother during the first two years of Cassie’s life, but Holly worked her butt off to finish her education and still be a good mom. She earned her undergraduate degree in three years, then entered law school. A law school friend introduced her to Larry, and they married when Cassie was almost six. Their twins were born a year after that.”
“Holly sounds amazing. It’s nice that you’ve stayed friendly for Cassie’s sake.”
“It’s been for my sake, too,” he assured her. What might have been wistfulness momentarily clouded his eyes when he explained, “I lost both my parents fairly young. Holly and Larry have been generous enough to include me in their family so that I was able to be a big part of Cassie’s life—and of the twins’, for that matter. They call me Uncle Paul. They’ve spent almost as many weekends with me as Cassie has.
“Larry’s a really great guy,” he added quickly, “but he’s a brainy engineer who has no interest in sports or outdoor activities, so I was the one who taught Cassie and the twins how to throw a ball and cast a line and ride a horse. I guess some people would consider it an odd arrangement, but it’s worked very well