Barefoot Brides by Annie Jones

across the street.
    Vince’s house. It felt like a big move forward in their relationship. A good move. Her stomach did a little flip-flop. She reined in her reaction and went back to shuffling those forms. “Yeah, okay, sounds great.”
    â€œGlad you like it.”
    Another shuffle through. Her whole body tingled with the urge to ask him why he wanted to take her to his home now. Why tonight? And what made it special? What she asked instead was, “What’s to eat?”
    â€œUh…I hadn’t…It’s a…It’s a surprise.”
    â€œA surprise?” For her or him? He obviously didn’t want to tell her so she tried another approach that might give her a clue about the evening. “What inspired this?”
    He looked at her as though she had just walked into the conversation. “Your sister.”
    Kate felt as though she’d just walked into the conversation. “Jo?”
    â€œMoxie.”
    â€œMoxie told you to have me over for dinner?”
    â€œNo, she spoiled my lunch.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe story I just told you? About her showing up at the Bait Shack? Then this Hunt fellow horns in, too? Tells her if she doesn’t like his story to write her own? If she wants to talk about it further to see him at his office because he’s on lunch break? Any of this ringing a bell?”
    â€œMost of it.” She didn’t want to admit she’d only been half listening to what he was saying because she’d been too busy admiring the lines in his face, daydreaming about old TV shows and obsessing about whether or not he would ever propose to her again. “But I don’t see what it has to do with eating at your place.”
    â€œYou left out two important words. Eating in peace at my place. This relationship between us is so…” He raised his hand.
    It was a good hand. Calloused and tanned. Rugged and a little scarred, but with short, clean nails that showed his attention to detail. Kate liked those hands. She’d like them better if there was a wedding ring on the third finger of the left one.
    Wait.
    This relationship between us is so…
    What? She’d gotten so distracted looking at the man she had lost track of listening to him.
    He tilted his raised hand back and forth rather than say more. So, before she could stop herself, she said more. “So what? Rocky? Unsteady? Iffy?”
    The second the words came out she regretted them and slapped her hand over her mouth as if she could push them back inside and trap them there.
    That only made Vince laugh again. Then he shook his head and said, “None of the above, but still, I don’t want to leave it open to public scrutiny—and in a town this size, there isn’t anywhere to go that’s not ‘public’ or anything better for people to do than scrutinize.”
    She sat back in her seat. “And you think the two of us spending the evening at your house won’t set people talking?”
    He tapped the side of his head. “I’ve thought of a way to elevate it above all that.”
    That piqued her curiosity. An engagement announcement, or that golden wedding band, would both be excellent ways to quell any idle talk. She folded her hands on top of her desk. Cool, collected and coy, she used all her communication skills to say, “Oh?”
    His grin broke slowly but spread to include a glint in his eyes and to bring out those laugh lines in full force.
    Kate could barely contain herself. The man might just throw his plans out the window and propose right here and now. She pivoted her chair around just in case he wanted to drop to his knee in front of her.
    He pushed away from the door frame and took a step toward her, then said, “We’ll have a chaperone.”
    â€œA…what?” She almost fell forward at that and had to grab the edge of the desk to keep from swiveling herself around to face the back wall.
    â€œA