It wasn’t that Frederick had been the love of her life. They were dear friends, companions, parents together. Frederick had rescued her from hopeless poverty, and she’d given him the family he desired.
“I wish I could,” she said honestly.
“Something is stopping you?” His tone was gentle, even concerned.
“A full and busy life.” She wasn’t about to get into details.
“Someone else?” he asked.
She drew back in surprise. “What?”
“Are you dating someone else?”
“I don’t date.” She glanced over her shoulder to check the lineup, feeling suddenly guilty for standing and talking while Hannah and the others were so busy.
“Everyone dates,” Deacon said.
“No, they don’t. Case in point, me.” Why was she still here? Why was she indulging herself in something that couldn’t happen?
“Maybe not in the formal sense, but the opposite sex is always checking each other out.”
“I’m not checking you out,” she lied.
There was a gentle amusement in his blue eyes. “Well, I am most definitely checking you out.”
“Don’t.”
“It’s not something I can control. But to be clear, I’m only suggesting coffee and conversation.”
She gestured to the lineup. “I have to get back to work.”
“Okay.”
“I can’t go out with you. I don’t have time.” The excuse was perfectly true. Between the bakery and her sons, she had no time for a social life.
“Okay.” He gave up easily.
She didn’t regret saying no. She wouldn’t allow herself to regret it.
She gave him a nod and firmly turned herself around, heading behind the counter.
“What was that?” Hannah asked in an undertone.
“Just a customer.” Callie wished she didn’t feel overheated. Then again, she was in a bakery, and it was May. It would be odd if she didn’t feel overheated.
“He was in last week.”
“He was,” Callie acknowledged.
Hannah finished ringing up a cheesecake order and handed a customer some change.
Callie took a clean plate from the stack and loaded it up with a slice of Spring Berry Cheesecake, a drizzle of chocolate sauce and a generous dollop of whipped cream. She set it on top of the case, then assembled another identical one.
“What did he say?” Hannah asked.
“Nothing,” Callie answered.
“That was an awfully long nothing.”
“He asked me to coffee,” Callie admitted.
“That’s fantastic.”
“I said no.”
A new customer stepped up. “Two pecan tarts and a dozen peanut butter cookies. Can you make the cookies to go?”
“Cookies to go,” Hannah called over her shoulder.
Callie plated the tarts. “Whipped cream?” she asked the man.
“Only on one.”
She decorated the tart, while another staff member bagged the cookies.
The staff worked efficiently until the lineup disappeared.
Hannah followed Callie into the back, where cinnamon twists were cooling on racks, and the bakers were rolling out pastry.
“Why would you say no?” Hannah asked her.
Callie knew exactly what Hannah was talking about. “I’m not going to date a tourist. I’m not going to date anyone. I don’t have time, and it’s only been six months.”
“It’s been a lot more than six months.”
“Nobody knows that.” Callie and Frederick had never let on that their marriage was anything other than normal.
Hannah’s voice went singsong. “I’m just saying, what’s wrong with a little flirting, a little kissing, a little...whatever with a handsome stranger?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Because the answer you wish you could give is opposite to the answer you want to give,” Hannah said with authority.
“That didn’t even make any sense.”
“Your hormones want one thing, but your brain is fighting it.”
“I have two sons, a bakery and city beautification to think about.”
“Callie, you’re a healthy and vibrant young woman who’s never—”
“That has nothing to do with anything.”
Hannah knew Frederick hadn’t been able to engage in intercourse. James and Ethan were conceived through in vitro fertilization.
“You’re going to have to take the plunge someday.”
“Sex is not the only kind of intimacy.”
“I get that,” Hannah said, backing off.
“It doesn’t sound like you get that.”
“I’m not trying to push you.”
Callie let out a laugh at the absurdity of Hannah’s last statement.
“I’m only saying...you know...don’t write off a guy like that too quickly. Think about it.”
Callie had thought about it. She was still thinking about it. That was her biggest problem. She couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it.
* * *
Deacon recognized a losing strategy when he was engaged in one. Callie wasn’t going to date him. It was probably because of the Mayor, but it could be something else. In any event, if he wanted to get closer to her and find out, he had to change tactics.
He spent another week in town, researching Callie and Hank Watkins. People considered them both pillars of the community. They hung with the same crowd, attended the same functions. People mostly thought the Mayor was a good catch, and a few seemed to have speculated on the two of them as a couple.
When Deacon learned Callie was on the City Beautification Committee, he jumped on the opportunity and showed up at a meeting. He sat in the back, obscured by the shape of the room. But he was close enough to watch her interactions with Hank.
Hank whispered in her ear at one point, and she smiled in return. He touched her arm, and she didn’t pull away. He filled her water glass and offered her a pen. She took the pen and drank the water.
Watching her cozy up to the wealthy, powerful, but much older, Hank Watkins renewed Deacon’s suspicion she’d married Frederick for his money. It also confirmed that Deacon had competition.
He realized he didn’t have the Watkins name and power, and he sure couldn’t tell her he was a Clarkson. But he’d achieved a reasonable level of success in life, and he could make himself sound better than he was—richer and more powerful.
But he was going to take a more subtle approach this time, let her come to him. At the end of the meeting, when coffee and cookies were served over friendly chitchat, he struck up a conversation with a few Charleston citizens. He stood where he was sure he’d be in Callie’s line of