“Carol?” he asked, standing up.
Good manners, then.
Guilt speared Carolyn’s overactive conscience. “Actually,” she said, approaching his table slowly, “my name is Carolyn, not Carol.”
He laughed, revealing a healthy set of very white teeth, extending one arm for a handshake. He wore jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt in a dusty shade of blue and an air of easy confidence. “And mine is Bill, not Ben.”
The confession put Carolyn at ease—mostly. She managed a shaky smile and sat down in the second chair at Ben’s—Bill’s—table. “Do you really have a nine-year-old daughter named Ellie?” she asked.
“Yes,” Bill replied, sitting only when Carolyn was settled in her own chair. “Do you really work in a bank, have two dogs and like to bowl?”
“No,” Carolyn admitted, coloring a little. “I lied about my job, my hobbies and my pets. Is that a deal-breaker?”
Bill chuckled. His eyes were so warm, dancing in his tanned face.
And as attractive as he was, he wasn’t Brody.
Too bad.
“What’s the truth about you, Carol—yn?” he asked, smiling.
“I sew a lot, I look after a friend’s cat and I’m in business with a friend,” Carolyn confessed, after a few moments of recovery. She blushed. “And I can’t remember the last time I was so nervous.”
Ben—Bill—smiled. “I don’t sew, I’m strictly a dog-person and I fight fires for a living, just as I said in my bio. That said, I’m amazed, because despite all the prevarications, you look just like your picture. You’re beautiful, Carolyn.”
At that, the blush burned in Carolyn’s face. She looked down. “Flatterer,” she said.
Bill smiled. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?” Carolyn countered, a beat behind.
“Coffee?” Bill said, grinning. “Latte? Café Americano? Espresso with a double-shot of what-the-hell-am-I-doing-here?”
Finally, Carolyn relaxed. A little. “Latte,” she said. “Nonfat, please.”
Bill smiled, nodded, rose and went to the counter to order a nonfat latte.
Carolyn, desperate for something to do in the meantime, checked out the book he’d been reading when she approached.
You could tell a lot about a person by what they liked to read.
A Single Father’s Guide to Communication with a Preteen Girl.
Well, Carolyn thought, trust her to meet up with a guy who was both sensitive and masculine after she’d been spoiled for functional relationships by Brody Creed.
Presently, Bill returned with her latte, looking pleasantly rueful. “Confession time,” he said, with a sigh, as he sat down again. “I’m on the rebound, Carol—Carolyn. I didn’t mention that in my profile.”
“No,” Carolyn said, oddly relieved. She reached for her latte, took a sip. It was very hot. “You didn’t.”
“Her name,” Bill told her, “is Angela. We’re all wrong for each other.”
Carolyn considered the foam on her latte for a long moment. “His name is Brody,” she said. “Two people were never more mismatched than the two of us.”
A silence fell.
“Well, then,” Bill finally said. “We have something in common, don’t we?”
“Are you in love?” Carolyn asked, after a very long time and a lot of latte. “With Angela, I mean?”
“I don’t know,” Bill replied. “One minute, I want to spend the rest of my life with the woman, the next, I’d just as soon join the Foreign Legion or jump off the Empire State Building.”
Carolyn wanted to cry. She also wanted to laugh. “Love sucks,” she said, raising her latte cup. Bill touched his cup to hers.
“Amen,” he said. “Love definitely sucks.”
IF CAROLYN HAD had any say as to whom she fell in love with, she would definitely have chosen Bill Venable, brave fighter of forest fires, devoted father of a nine-year-old daughter, all-around good-looking hunk of a guy.
Alas, she had no such influence in an unpredictable universe, but she knew early on that she’d found a valuable ally in the man who bought her a latte.
“So, tell me more about Angela,” she said, stirring her latte and avoiding Bill’s gaze. “Does she live in Lonesome Bend?”
Bill cleared his throat, looked away, looked back. Finally nodded. “She teaches third grade at the elementary school,” he said.
“I see,” Carolyn answered, without guilt, because in many ways, she did see. “So what’s the problem between the two of you?”
“She doesn’t like my job,” Bill answered, after pondering a while. “Firefighting, I mean. Too dangerous, keeps me away from home too much, et cetera.”
“Yikes,” Carolyn observed. “How does Ellie feel about Angela?”
“She adores her,” Bill admitted. “And the reverse is true. Ellie thinks Angela would make the perfect stepmother. It’s a mutual admiration society with two members. Trust me, this is not my daughter’s usual reaction to the women I date.”
“So the fundamental problem is your job?” Carolyn inquired, employing a tactful tone. While she understood Bill’s dedication to his work, she sympathized with Angela, too. Love was risky enough, without one partner putting his life on the line on a regular basis.
Bill thrust out a sigh. “Yeah,” he said.
“Maybe you could look into another kind of career,” Carolyn suggested, already knowing what his answer would be.
Bill shook his very attractive head. Too bad he didn’t arouse primitive instincts in Carolyn the way Brody did, because he was seriously cute. “I love what I do,” he replied. “Flying an airplane. Putting out fires. It is a definite high.”
“But...dangerous,” Carolyn said.
“Well,” Bill affirmed, “yes. But I’d go crazy doing anything else. The boredom—” He fell silent again, his expression beleaguered. Obviously, he’d been over this ground a lot, with Angela and within the confines of his own head.
Carolyn waited a beat, then went ahead and butted into a situation that wasn’t any of her darn fool business in the first place. “What about your daughter, Bill?” she asked gently. “How does Ellie factor into this whole job thing?”
He sighed, shook his head again, aimed for a smile but missed. “I love that child with all my heart, and I want to do what’s best for her,” he said. “Keep her safe and happy and healthy. Raise her to be a strong woman, capable of making her own choices and taking care of herself and, if it comes to that, supporting a couple of kids on her own. But—”
Again, Bill lapsed into pensive silence.
“But?” Carolyn prompted quietly, after giving him a few moments to collect his thoughts.
“But,” Bill responded, managing a faint grin, “like I said before, I love what I do. Doesn’t that matter, too? And what kind of example would I be setting for Ellie if I took the easy route, tried to please everybody but myself?”
Carolyn toyed with her cup, raising and lowering her shoulders