He had invited me to dinner. That was all. And he quickly covered it by saying that we could talk about the vineyard and the grapes and make it a kind of work-adjacent evening. Whether that was because I looked conflicted about the idea or because he was, or both, I didn’t know for sure. But I was pretty sure I knew that it was bullshit either way. He didn’t mention the soil because he really thought we were going to sit around the entire time and go over the test results. My guess was it was a line to make me less hesitant.
It was working.
How was I going to sit across from him at a dinner table, in front of other people, and not think of it as a date and be smug about it? I knew I was going to be smug about it. I would literally kick myself if I went to dinner with a man as hot as him and didn’t enjoy how everyone looked at us.
If he hadn’t been holding a baby when I came in that morning, maybe I wouldn’t be in such a mess.
I swore, walking in, seeing him cradle a baby and smiling, it was simply too much. My ovaries nearly exploded where I stood in the doorway. Alex was standing behind me and had to move around me because I couldn’t get my legs to move. It was like they were rooted to the spot.
What the hell was that about?
I had never been the maternal type. As a matter of fact, I didn’t think I had a maternal bone in my body. I was a career woman, with career thoughts and a career plan. I’d spent years cultivating my future, and nowhere in it had I put a label named “children.” Not that I didn’t like them or found something wrong with that lifestyle, I just didn’t think it was in my future, so I didn’t factor it into my plans.
But then I had to walk in on a tall, sexy man holding a baby in his tattooed arms, and I was ready to throw away my work boots and turn into a fifties housewife. It was a damn fine TV trope for a reason. It did something to me that I wasn’t completely comprehending and wasn’t sure I was going to be able to ignore. The vision of his muscular and inked-up arms being so tender and soft holding that baby, and how happy he seemed to be in that moment, was going to stick with me for a long time.
The thoughts were racing through my mind so fast that I was driving on autopilot and was only able to make it to the university lab with the tremendous help of the British lady’s voice in my GPS. She guided me to every turn, and when I arrived, I realized I hadn’t paid attention to any of the drive at all. The entire thing was a blank from the time I closed my door at the vineyard until right that moment. The only thing I could remember clearly was the inner turmoil and the debate in my mind.
I shut off the engine and sat there for a moment. The college lab was open for a few more hours, and they were expecting me. But even if everything went spectacularly fast, it wouldn’t leave me a lot of time to get ready for dinner. I would not have enough time to go back to the bed-and-breakfast and shower, change clothes, and dig through my things for another pair of shoes. Besides, I was rather comfortable in my mud boots. It wasn’t going to be a romantic thing, so he would just have to deal with me trying to do something with my hair and going pretty much as is.
Inside, the student volunteer guided me to the lab, and I dropped off the samples with the technician. She guided me into the waiting area, and I took a seat on one of the plastic chairs to wait for the results. There was a TV in the corner, but it was playing some boring show about people who were looking for a dream home that was worth millions despite being unemployed or working niche jobs.
Still, I stared at it for a little while, zoning out as I thought about Kane and the upcoming evening. I had settled that it was a date, but not an official one. A tester date of sorts. Like in middle school. All the elements of a date were there, but instead of our parents being at a table across the restaurant, his entire family would be in the area, and I was technically in charge of if they could release wine in the state.
What if he was just buttering me up? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had been overly nice to me in hopes I would overlook things. But if that was the case, would he have been so excited to show me the soil and to go over all the things he had done to get the place up and running? Why would he ask me to dinner unless he was extremely vain and thought I would just melt at the idea.