With pumpkin bread and little dollops of butter on a Prussian plate, Abigail walked back out to the storefront carrying the silver tray set. Carson was seated at the table closest to the kitchen. She noticed he had taken off his tie and loosened the button on his collar.

Her eyes darted to the other tables where he had laid the napkins down just as he had been instructed to. The chuckle he let out directed her attention back to him.

“Did I do a good job, boss?”

"No need to be snarky. But yes, you did a fine job." She set the tray on the table and sat down across from him. She took each plate off the silver tray, and then the saucer and cup as well. He watched her every move, she noted. When all of the dishes were on the table, she stood again and picked up the tray. This time he grabbed her wrist.

“The tray can sit on the table. You're not serving me as a customer.”

“Then what am I doing?”

“You are having some tea and pumpkin bread, with me, as friends."

Abigail stood there with his fingers touching her skin. But there was calm. No longer did she see a threat to his life. The breath that she knew she was holding, she finally let go.

“Friends? We don't really know each other.”

“Well, then I guess we should get to know each other. Friends are just strangers who got to know each other, correct?"

His finger still lingered on her wrist. "Fine. I guess we're becoming friends." She set the tray back on the table and took her seat.

He was watching her again as she set up her teacup. She tried not to let it make her nervous, but she noticed her hand shook when she held the tea strainer over the cup.

"Are you going to make your tea?" she asked, noting that he had sat back, very comfortable.

"I'm having quite a nice time watching you make your tea.”

Abigail swallowed the lump in her throat. She wasn't afraid of this man. If she were, she would have let that rock fly through his window as he drove away from his office. But somehow, he ended up there in her store earlier than anticipated.

She set the silver pot of water down on the table, clasped her hands in her lap, and looked up at the handsome stranger across from her. "Why do you keep coming by my store?”

Carson pursed his lips. "I like the view,” he said.

"I didn't invite you back here this afternoon to flirt with you," she informed him. "I was being nice to a man who has brought me a lot of business in the last couple weeks. Your mother will be here tomorrow morning with her book club.”

"She did mention that. I think you'll find her friends delightful."

"So you're just being friendly because we’re in business in the same city?”

Carson leaned in, moving his teacup and his plate out of his way. He rested his forearms on the table and clasped his hands together. “Abigail, I think you can read me just fine. Yes, I want your shop to succeed. I happen to have a lot of women in my life who enjoy your shop, too. But I'm going to guess that you're a smart woman. You need more hints for me to tell you that I'm attracted to you?"

Abigail twisted her apron in her hands under the table. "Can't say I expected you to say that."

"I'll be disappointed if you don't think I'm attractive too.”

That made Abigail laugh, and she hadn't expected to laugh. She thought about the premonition she had the day that Mrs. Winters touched her. They looked happy. Was this the beginning of that fate? Was this the beginning of what would become? The premonition showed her that the two of them would be married. Was he a man she learned to love? Or was he the tyrant that she had made him out to be? At that very moment, she wasn't sure which one she wanted him to be.

She picked up her teacup and steadied it with both hands. Removing the strainer, she took a sip. It didn't seem to settle her nerves any.

Setting the cup back on the saucer, she clasped her hands again in her lap again. "I'm not used to this part of making friends."

"I came to that assumption on my own. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Abigail sucked in a breath to speak, then nearly choked on it when no words came out. It forced her to cough, and she pressed her hand to her chest while he looked on.

"Dinner? We've been in each other's presence maybe five times. Does that constitute dinner?"

Carson sat back in his chair and folded his arms in front of him. His smile was enormous, and his cheeks pinked as if he held a secret behind those eyes.

“How long do you think somebody needs before they know they love somebody?”

"Love somebody?" Her voice jumped another octave. “Are you telling me you are in love with me?”

He laughed a hearty laugh and sat back up straight in his chair. This time he poured the water into his cup and set the strainer in the water.

"Mrs. Winters knew her husband for seventy-two hours before they got married. It was love at first sight.”

“Perhaps things were different back then.”

"Perhaps.”

Abigail busied her hands by breaking her pumpkin bread into fourths. She took the petite knife and buttered one of the pieces. "You have a very special relationship with Mrs. Winters."

Carson nodded, the smile still wide on his lips. "I do. We helped each other through a very hard time. I suppose we still help each other out through that very hard time." The smile remained on his lips, but his eyes told another story.

Abigail sipped her tea. "Since we're friends. Can you tell me about that hard time?"

Carson broke his bread into pieces, much as she had, but he didn't add butter to the bite he took. He took another moment to collect himself. "Jeffery Winters and I were best friends from the time we were five years old. He was like a brother to me." The smile was back as he brushed his fingers through his hair. “Junior year, just shy of his seventeenth birthday, we headed up Lookout Mountain for a guys’ night."

Abigail could feel the change in the story coming. Instinctively, she reached her hand across the table and placed it on his.

He looked up at her with sad eyes, and her heart broke into two.

"Every part of that night could've been avoided. Every single part." He looked down at their hands, hers covering his, and moved so that he intertwined their fingers together. “We had all intentions of spending the night there, back in the wooded area. We each had a six-pack of some nasty beer. And though we drove to the top, we had no plans to drive back down. We were smarter than that."

His thumb grazed over her knuckles. The intimacy lit a fire in her chest.

"We were as drunk as any seventeen-year-old boys could get on cheap beer. We had blankets on the hard ground, stars above our heads, and a little fire in a fire pit.”

"If you didn't drive down the mountain, what happened?" She had to ask. It was as if he wasn't getting to the end fast enough for her heart to break again.

"Jeffery got up. It must've been two o'clock in the morning. All we can think is that he got up to go to the bathroom. Then there was the most horrific scream." He squeezed her fingers in his. "He fell off the side of the mountain. They couldn't save him. The fall, the rocks—his injuries were too severe."

Abigail raised her free hand to her lips, which now trembled. Tears welled in her eyes. "Carson, I'm so sorry."

"Me too," he said.

He must have realized he had been squeezing her fingers because he let them go and rubbed his hands over his thighs.

"Mrs. Winters had always been like a grandmother to me. She treated me just like she treated Jeffery. And since, at the time, my grandparents lived on the East Coast, I embraced that. So, every month I take her to lunch, just as I would have hoped Jeffery would have. She scolds me, gives me advice, and makes me appreciate every single day of my life."

"Carson, that's beautiful.”

"A lesson learned at a very high cost."

Abigail took her napkin from the table and dabbed her eyes. "Well, I feel like we're friends now. Thank you for sharing your story with me."

Carson gave her a slow nod and a moment later smiled again. "So, friend, tomorrow night? Will you have dinner with me?”

She certainly had nothing to lose now, she thought. She knew deep in her heart this was the man she was going to marry, just as the premonition had said. Only now, knowing the fate of Mrs. Winters, her heart broke even more. Was she strong enough to see him through that?

"Okay, friend, I'll have dinner with you."

The sadness seemed to lift from his eyes. Once again, those dark eyes looked into her soul.