GINA WILKINS - A Proposal at the Wedding

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 for us.”

Bonnie thought it was rather charming, though she couldn’t help wondering how other women in Paul’s life felt about him remaining so close to his daughter’s mother. She could see how it might be intimidating for an outsider to try to make a place for herself in that cozy arrangement. Was there a woman in Paul’s life now? She could think of no subtle way to ask.

She really had been too narrowly focused on the inn for the past few years, she thought ruefully. It would be three years in October since she and her brother and sister had inherited the place from their late, maternal great-uncle, and the first of November would mark their second anniversary of reopening to guests after a year of renovations. Those three years had been busy and challenging, leaving little time for a social life. She’d almost forgotten how to flirt, and she could hardly remember the last time she’d gone beyond flirtation. It was definitely time to address that situation. She had even considered signing up with an online dating service.

She supposed she could consider this impromptu coffee break as practice…or maybe a possible beginning? Paul had certainly remained in her thoughts after their previous meetings.

“It sounds as though Cassie and her siblings had a close extended support system,” she said, trying to stay focused on the conversation. “That had to be good for them.”

Paul nodded, his expression suddenly hard to read. “Yeah. It’s been great. But a lot of things are changing. For Cassie and for me.”

With a slight shake of his head, he reached again for his cookie before she could decide how to respond. “I don’t usually tell my life story over coffee, but since you’ll be helping us with the wedding arrangements, I figured you’d want to know you don’t have to go out of your way to accommodate the bride’s parents. Nor do you have to worry about anything unpleasant occurring during the event. We’re cool with whatever works best for Cassie and the wedding planner.”