It was a week since Moose’s father had come storming into her office to yell at the top of his lungs, and…nothing. At first, Georgia had chalked it up to Moose needing to straighten out his relationship with his dad. They would talk to each other, figure things out, and then he could come by and talk to her.

Simple.

Except for the part where he wasn’t coming by to talk to her.

The tiny insidious voice deep down inside of her that began as not even a whisper but rather a hint of a whisper on a breeze, began to grow louder.

Maybe Moose had chosen Tennessee after all. Maybe…maybe Moose finally came to his senses and realized that Georgia was the ugly cousin.

Honestly, it hadn’t made much sense to her that Moose had wanted to date her anyway. She wouldn’t have put it as crudely as Mr. Garrett did, but even in her own mind, Georgia could see the logic of what that man had said. Georgia had the kind of simple beauty that didn’t stop men in the streets. Didn’t leave their tongues hanging out of their mouths when they saw her.

She wasn’t unfortunate, with a nose three times too big for her face and crossed eyes, but…

Well, she sure as hell wasn’t Tennessee.

Moose had had his entire life to realize that, so it seemed a little late to show up to that party, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was that plus Moose’s father threatening to disinherit him that finally broke him.

It was a lot to give up on the hope of a relationship with her. She understood…intellectually.

It still broke her heart.

She went running after work each evening, pounding down the running path around the lake on the edge of town. She wanted the burn of her thigh muscles and lungs to remind her that she was still alive. She wanted the clarity of mind that came from pushing her body to the limit.

She wanted Moose.

It was the beginning of day nine that had her starting to question everything she thought she knew about Moose. Surely if he’d decided to stay with Tenny; if he’d decided to marry her and inherit the dealership and continue on the path his parents had laid out for him at birth, he would’ve told her about it.

Right?

Yet hour after hour when he didn’t appear, she began to question that. Her hand moved a thousand times towards her phone, wanting to shoot him a text or an email or a smoke signal or something. Ask him what he was thinking and what he was doing and why was he leaving her hanging here like this?

She always stopped herself though, because she’d told him what needed to happen:

He needed to talk to Tennessee, and then he could come talk to her. He’d obviously done the first part of that equation. She wasn’t going to force him to do the second part.

She thought about asking her mom to ask her sister-in-law about Tennessee and Moose, but pride, plain and simple, stopped her from even doing that. She wasn’t going to beg her mother to talk to Robert or Roberta. It wasn’t fair to her mom, who didn’t like her brother- and sister-in-law any more than Georgia did, and anyway, Georgia didn’t want to admit that she wanted to know that badly.

Moose will come talk to me when he’s ready. When he’s ready. When he’s ready…

Day eleven came, and Georgia noticed a flyer hanging in the foyer of the credit union when she went to open up the front doors at 9 o’clock. It was the first wine tasting and art show of the season in Franklin and would be happening next Monday night – Memorial Day evening.

It could be a fun way to kick off the summer with Moo–with Tripp. She needed to do something more than run in circles every evening and file paperwork all day, and hey, Tripp could scout out a cutie or two to hit on. She could be his wingman. Help him pick a good one out.

Because I obviously have such good taste in people…

She pushed that thought away and instead went in search of Tripp. She found him back in the vault, putting away the paperwork from the opening routine. “Hey, are you busy Monday night?”

* * *

They pushed their way through the crowd, wine glasses in hand as they moseyed on down the main street of Franklin, checking out the paintings on display as they went. There were lots of abstracts and paintings of people’s dogs to look over, and then, they found the motherlode.

Tripp’s eyes lit up as he spotted Austin Bishop’s face on an oil painting outside of Once Upon a Trinket. “I heard about this,” Tripp said, laughing, to Georgia. “Ivy McLain, Iris’ younger sister, started painting these when Austin broke up with her.” He grabbed Georgia’s hand and pulled her over to the arranged paintings.

The feeling of laughter quickly faded, though, as they took in the art in front of them.

“Wow,” Georgia breathed. “I had no idea Ivy was so talented. These are amazing. No wonder Austin took her back.” Everyone had heard by now about the…overblown nature of Ivy’s stories about her success in California, but the paintings in front of them said all that Georgia needed to know: The people of California were blind as bats if they didn’t recognize her talents.

They began browsing the paintings, Austin everywhere she turned, and Georgia began imagining Moose’s face on all of these. Could she hire Ivy to do a painting of Moose? Without him knowing it? And then she could hide it underneath the bed and only pull it out at night?

Okay, I officially need to adopt a cat. Or seven. This is out of control.

Finally, they’d finished looking through every Austin painting in the bunch, and they began to wander further down the street. Georgia pulled her coat tighter around herself, shivering against the light evening breeze blowing through. They were on the cusp of summer, but it was still cold in the evenings up here in the mountains, especially without Moose there to keep her warm—

Stop it. Just stop it.

But then, as if her thoughts had conjured him up, there he was, standing in front of them.

“Oh hi!” Moose exclaimed, just as startled as they were to run into each other. He smiled warmly at Georgia, his eyes crinkling up just a little in the corner as he took her in. “You’re looking good. How are you?”

Georgia just stared at him. He was acting like nothing had happened; that everything was fine.

Her mind broke a little, trying to take that in.

And then…

“You’d know how I was if you’d ever called,” she snapped. “Or came by the credit union!” She wanted to scream and yell and beat him about the head with something heavy and most of all, she wanted to throw herself into his arms and hug him close…

Which just frustrated her even more. I don’t need him. I don’t. I really don’t.

And she was totally going to believe herself any minute now. Any minute at all.