Emilie Richards - No River Too Wide

Fifteen minutes later she was walking into Cuppa after scoring an amazing parking place right in front, another sign. On the drive she had tried to remember what Taylor had told her about Nate Winchester. They had been friends in high school, and then he had gone off to college, followed by the army. He had only recently returned to run the family custom cabinetry business, which did a lot of work for Ethan, Taylor’s architect father. Taylor said Nate was one of the good guys, a sweetheart. They had been friends so long they would never see each other as anything else, but she’d thought maybe he and Harmony might strike a spark or two. Taylor thought they had a lot in common.

Harmony and Nate had shared one rushed phone call. They’d nailed down the time, but now she couldn’t remember how she was supposed to recognize him. In a minute she realized it didn’t matter, because all her old friends on staff came over to greet her and find out how she was doing. When the crowd cleared away, Nate was the only one left.

“Hi,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m Nate.”

She smiled because his smile was infectious, and she took his hand for a firm shake. “You’ve guessed who I am.”

“Taylor told me to look for a tall blonde with lots of friends.”

Harmony hadn’t been on a date since she and Davis were a couple. She tried to remember how she was supposed to examine a guy without looking as if she had a checklist. Her initial impression was that once she had a list in hand, she would need a good pen, because this time she would be making lots of check marks.

Nate was taller than she was, lean and muscular, with friendly brown eyes and auburn hair cut short, but not too short. His clothes were casual, but not sloppy. His trousers looked freshly pressed, which almost made her smile, since she wasn’t sure she owned an iron.

“I have a table,” he said. “I bet the service is going to be great. They’ll be fighting over you.”

She followed him to a corner. Cuppa had been little more than a coffee shop when she began working there, but later it had morphed into a bistro. Now it sported topiaries on the sidewalk and hanging ferns in the windows, along with an expanded menu, although the coffee bar jutting along one side was definitely casual. Tonight the room was crowded, but Nate had a good eye, and he had chosen the one corner table where they might have a little privacy.

“I hope you’re hungry.” Nate waited for Harmony to choose a seat; then he pulled out her chair.

She thought this was, quite possibly, a first. When had anyone seated her, except possibly the waiter at the country club dinner she had once attended with Davis? She put a mark next to “polite” on her mental checklist and smiled her thanks.

She thought it was wise to immediately bring up the subject of Lottie. If Nate wasn’t interested in a single parent, he ought to know right now that she was one. She made sure she sounded matter-of-fact.

“The closest I’ve gotten to eating since breakfast was finishing the Cheerios on my daughter’s high-chair tray.”

“Is she old enough to feed herself?” he asked without missing a beat.

“She thinks she is. I shovel in whatever I’ve prepared between her finger food.”

“I’m the oldest of six. I was the only kid who went to Covenant Academy with rice cereal and mashed bananas on his shirt.”

“Your job was feeding the babies?”

“Until I got my driver’s license. Then I was in charge of pickup and delivery. My sister still talks about the time I took her to ballet class with a crate of chickens and a goat in the back of our minivan. My mother was trading livestock with another farmer across town.”

“You come from a farm family?”

“We have two acres, and Mom used every inch while we were growing up, but now a lot of the garden area is devoted to wildflowers. She got rid of the goats last month. I think the bees will go next.”

“Six kids?” She tried to imagine it.

“Devoted Catholics, although they sent us to Covenant Academy instead of Catholic schools because they liked the curriculum better.”

“I think I’m more a Buddhist than anything, although I don’t really go to church,” she said, waiting for him to scrunch up his face and remember a prior commitment.

“I’m just trying to live a good life,” Nate said with a grin. “I leave all the theology to people who are more worried than I am.”

He hadn’t flinched over her single-parent status. He hadn’t flinched over her religion or lack of one. “The veggie pizza here is a standout,” she said. “Did Taylor mention I’m a vegetarian?”

“I don’t remember. I’m one of those guys who’ll eat anything. Buffalo burgers? Brussels sprouts?” He shrugged, as if to say he didn’t care which.

She put down the menu, which hadn’t changed since her days on staff. “It’s possible you’re too good to be true.”

“I hitchhiked to San Francisco when I was sixteen to attend a Star Trek convention. I have an autographed poster of Captain Jean Luc Piccard in a safe-deposit box.”

“That’s the worst you’ve got?”

“Geekier than that? I played tuba in the academy band, mostly because I was the only one who could lift it out of the case. I went into the army because they promised me the Mideast. Then they sent me to Honolulu. I spent the whole time upgrading cabinets in officers’ housing at Schofield Barracks.” He grinned, an infectious, friendly grin. “Bad enough for you?”

She smiled, too. How could she not like Nate Winchester? Still, she had to counter.

She leaned forward. “I’m the product of a family who gives the word dysfunctional new meaning. I got pregnant despite using birth control and refused to marry the father when I realized he wanted to use our baby to impress the partners in his accounting firm. Now I work on a farm. Digging in the dirt and cleaning out the barn makes me happy in a way nothing else ever did. I want to be a lawyer, but I haven’t even started college and won’t until Lottie’s a little older.”

“Just so I know?”

She nodded. “Just so you know.”

“How about a glass of wine? And I’m good with the veggie pizza if you want to split one.”

“White wine for me, and you won’t have much choice on the brand—they’re probably still working on their wine cellar. Oh, and I don’t like Brussels sprouts.”

“Duly noted.”

She didn’t like Brussels sprouts, but she did like Nate. How could she not? As he gave their order, though, she was also aware that while she liked him just fine, sitting here with him was like sitting with a new girlfriend she’d met at the gym or the produce section of Fresh Market. He was good-looking, funny, intelligent and kind.

And she didn’t feel even one faint spark igniting between them.

Chapter 9

From the audio journal of a forty-five-year-old woman, taped for the files of Moving On, an underground highway for abused women.

The first time the Abuser slapped me I was stunned. Three weeks after we were married in a simple ceremony, he came home to find that I had rearranged the kitchen of our new house to better suit my needs. Since I did all the cooking, I never considered that when he unpacked our new utensils and dishes he had meant for them to stay in the cabinets he had chosen. Foolishly I had even expected him to be pleased I was settling in and making our house a home.

He was sorry afterward, of course, tired from a long day at work in a job he despised because he hated taking orders from people who weren’t as smart as he was. Sorry enough that as he moved the kitchen contents back where he had first put them, he said he would have to remember to be more patient, that he knew I was learning to be a wife. But since he lived in the house, too, I should remember that all our decisions were to be made together.