The Texan's Tennessee Romance / The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess. Gina Wilkins
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is a really good cook. Desserts are her specialty.”
“It tastes even better than it looks,” he said, swallowing a creamy bite and reaching for his coffee. “Good coffee, too,” he said after taking a cautious sip of the hot beverage.
“Thanks. I buy my beans from a coffee and tea specialty store in Nashville. It’s one of my favorite places to browse.”
He set his cup down and then turned to face her on the couch while he swallowed another bite of the pie. He was fully aware that she didn’t want to answer questions about herself. He’d have to be blind to miss the signals. While she was perfectly amenable to congenial small talk, she had no intention of sharing too much of herself.
He’d gone along with her obvious wishes during dinner. But now he was tempted to push his luck a little. Because Natalie Lofton intrigued him too much for him not to at least try to learn a little more about her. Preferably from her, rather than anyone else.
“How long have you lived in Nashville?” That seemed an innocuous enough way to begin.
She looked into her coffee cup. “Pretty much all my life.”
“I’ve always lived within a few miles of Dallas, myself,” he confided. “I guess we have that in common. Not moving around a lot, I mean.”
“I suppose so.”
He suspected that she did not want to talk about careers, since she didn’t seem to have one at the moment. He wasn’t particularly interested in talking about his own, either. He would be hard-pressed to explain exactly what had led him to take an unpaid and inconveniently timed leave of absence.
Family seemed like another relatively harmless topic. “Do your parents still live in Nashville?”
“No. My mother and her husband live in Mississippi, and my dad lives in London.”
He hadn’t realized that her parents were divorced. He knew his family was atypical, but divorce just didn’t happen in the Walker clan, so it hadn’t occurred to him. But she hadn’t sounded particularly bitter, so maybe that wasn’t a sensitive subject for her. “Your dad is Jewel’s brother, right?”
“Yes. They were the closest in age of the five siblings.”
“Five?”
She nodded. “Only three are still living.”
“So you come from a big family, too.”
“You’d think so, but Tommy was Aunt Jewel’s only son, I’m Dad’s only offspring, one of my uncles never had children and the others had three kids between them, none of whom I know very well. I asked my dad once why his family wasn’t closer and he said he didn’t really know. They just drifted apart after their mother died when he and Aunt Jewel were still in school.”
“But you’ve been close to your aunt.”
“Yes. Not as close as I would have liked, since we live several hours apart, and I haven’t been able to make it to east Tennessee very often the last few years. But we’ve always had a special bond between us.”
“I’m pretty close to my aunts, too,” he offered. “Especially Aunt Taylor—she’s married to my dad’s twin brother. Since I was almost always with their boys, Aaron and Andrew, she and my mom claim they pretty much co-mothered the three of us. The rest of the family called us the ‘terrible trio.’”
That made her laugh, and he found himself mesmerized by a quick flash of dimples at the corners of her mouth. He hadn’t noticed those before—but he hadn’t seen her laugh that many times before. At the risk of sounding clichéd, he thought she really should do so more often.
“I don’t know why that doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Were you known as, um, accident-prone, perhaps?”
He frowned at her. “Very funny.”
“Sorry.” She set her empty pie plate back on the tray. “You said you and your twin cousins are the same age?”
“Almost. Aaron and Andrew are a few months younger than I am. They’re twenty-five. I turned twenty-six in July.”
She gave a little smile. “I’ll celebrate my thirtieth birthday this coming January.”
Which confirmed his guess about her age. “So you’re, what? An Aquarius?”
She waved a hand. “Capricorn, though I don’t really follow horoscopes.”
“I’m a Leo. I have a cousin who’s recently gotten into that sort of thing. She’s pretty good with it. It’s amazing how accurate she can be with her charting and stuff.”
His cousin Dawne had actually warned him that he was headed for a crisis a year ago, when it had appeared to everyone else—and to him, for that matter—that he was leading a charmed life. She’d seen something in his stars that had told her he had some serious choices to make, and that the outcome of those choices could lead either to a lifetime of contentment or one of quiet despair.
He’d almost forgotten that conversation until now. Maybe he should call Dawne tomorrow and ask if her star charts had any useful advice for him now that he’d actually reached the crossroads he’d been warned about.
Natalie seemed to have no interest in discussing astrology. “Can I get you any more coffee?”
“No, thanks. I guess I’d better be leaving if I’m going to get more done tonight.”
She put her cup on the tray. “Just set your dishes on the tray,” she said, motioning toward the coffee cup he’d just drained. “I’ll take care of them.”
Somewhat reluctantly, he stood. “Thanks for the meal, Natalie. It was really good.”
She walked with him toward the door. “It was nice having the company.” She sounded as if she really meant it.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow then. I should be around sometime late morning to waterproof the deck.”
“I won’t be here much tomorrow. I promised Aunt Jewel I’d join them for church in the morning and then for Sunday lunch. Do you have a key if you need to get into the cabin while I’m gone?”
He told himself there was no reason for him to be disappointed that she had other plans. He wasn’t coming back for social reasons, but to work. He probably wouldn’t have seen her much, anyway. “I’ll bring Kyle’s key, but I’m planning on just working outside tomorrow.”
“Yes, well, feel free to come in if you need anything.”
“Thanks.” He stepped out onto the porch, then hesitated. Turning, he said, “Hey, Natalie?”
She paused in the act of closing the door behind him. “Yes?”
“Maybe I could return the favor sometime. Treat you to dinner, I mean.” Not exactly a smooth invitation, he thought with a slight wince. “There’s a really nice steak-and-seafood place in town. I’ve been told the trout there is the best. Maybe we could try it out one night this week?”
He could almost see the debate going on inside her head. She looked tempted…but a little nervous about accepting. What was it about him that would make her nervous?
“Maybe,” she said after a moment. “If there’s time.”
He wasn’t sure what that meant, but at least it wasn’t an outright rejection. “Okay. We’ll talk about it later then.”
She moved back a step into the cabin. “Good night, Casey.”
“Goo—”
But she had already closed the door between them.
Casey’s truck was in the driveway when Natalie returned to the cabin after visiting her aunt and uncle for most of Sunday afternoon. The fact that her heart started beating a little faster at the thought of seeing him again made