A week had gone by and Ali still hadn’t heard from Liam. She was starting to think that maybe he just wanted to try to get into her pants that night at the bar.
Then the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she’d never been a bad judge of character, and like she’d told herself multiple times...he had kind eyes.
People with kind eyes didn’t do that. They didn’t play games and they didn’t stand you up.
Of course, standing someone up and not calling you after having a few drinks together wasn’t really the same thing.
She thought about going back to the bar again tonight when she left the farm to see if he was there and pretend to run into him without him thinking she was actually looking for him. The only problem with that was, she wasn’t good at lying and she wouldn’t be able to get away with it without confessing what she was doing there.
Maybe he was just busy this week? That had to be it. She’d been running around like crazy between work on the farm and school herself. There was no time to think about sexy men and dates. Liar!
But by the end of the day on Saturday, she’d worked herself up so much that she realized she needed to just try to reach out to him and see if he’d respond. If he didn’t, then she’d know what a fool she was to waste her time thinking of him.
Before she changed her mind, she texted, Hi, Liam. It’s Ali from the bar. How have you been?
She hit send before she talked herself out of it, thinking it was too lame to text. Rather than stare at her phone for the next several hours hoping he responded, she drove home and told herself she was going to shower and throw together some dinner and see what happened.
***
Liam saw the message come up on his phone and ground his teeth. He’d wanted to reach out to Ali all week but told himself he couldn’t yet. It didn’t feel right knowing that the business deal was going through.
As excited as he was about it, he was more afraid she’d get mad and not want to see him. Then he realized she was going to know who he was anyway since Belinda was supposed to be showing him the ropes for the next few months.
There was no way out of it at this point. When he convinced himself of that, he realized it’d been almost a week since they’d exchanged numbers and he felt like a fool waiting this long to reply.
Now he backed himself into a corner and had no idea what the next move should be.
He sat on her text for thirty minutes and finally decided honesty was the best policy. Good. Been meaning to text you, but there’s something you should know.
It wasn’t long before she texted back. That you’re like a brick wall when someone runs into you?
Shit. She had a great personality. This was going to be harder than he thought and he really didn’t want to do it this way. You’re the only one that’s run into me and has been knocked off her feet. Maybe we should take that as a good sign.
Did he really just hit send to that?
I haven’t had a lot of good signs in my life, so it’s nice to get one.
Talk about guilt. That was it. He had to put an end to this. Can we meet tonight somewhere? How about dinner?
Sounds great. Let me know the time and place and I’ll meet you there.
He tossed his phone on the couch after he texted her the name of a restaurant that he was hoping would be somewhat quiet tonight so they could talk. Maybe being in public would help, he hoped, but he was going to be honest and upfront. If she was mad, if she didn’t want to see him again, if she felt that he was taking away something of her life, he’d just have to accept it and move on.
***
Ali had no idea what it was that Liam had to tell her. She hoped to God he wasn’t some criminal or something equally as bad. She’d done a search on him and saw his contracting business, but not much more about him on a personal level.
Oh well, guess she’d find out soon enough, but right now she was just too giddy over seeing him again.
She couldn’t remember the last time she was excited about a date or even a guy. Sure, she’d dated plenty, but nothing had ever been serious. She was just too busy between work, getting her master’s—which she finally finished over the summer—and the farm.
Then there was the nagging in the back of her mind that her parents’ marriage failed due to the farm. Or at least from what she’d heard growing up, not that her mother talked much about it. Nor had her mother tried to date again after her grandfather died. She’d been dating someone for about a year, but something happened there that her mother never spoke of.
Thoughts of her parents’ relationship were putting a downer on her evening. She had just stepped out of the shower and was drying off when Liam’s text came in, so now she ran to her closet to figure out what to wear. Good thing he didn’t know she was standing wrapped only in a towel, but the mischievous side of her wanted to tease him with it when she never had done that with another man before.
When she pulled into the parking lot, she saw Liam standing against his truck with his arms crossed and a grin on his face. Was it possible for someone to be so happy all the time? She’d always thought she was, but she never really saw too many men like that. Guess whatever he had to say couldn’t be that bad.
“Hi,” she said, walking up to him. Yep, her body was already sizzling in anticipation of another kiss, so she knew she hadn’t made it up...what she was feeling for him.
“Hey,” he said, reaching his hand out to hers, then pulling her in and giving her a little bit of a hug. It didn’t feel like a “relationship” hug, but more of “I’m sorry something happened to you” hug. She was going to ask him what was wrong, but he said, “Hope you’re hungry, I’m starving.”
“I’m always hungry, but I worked all day, so I burned a lot of calories.”
“Well, let’s go feed you then,” he said, but nothing else.
Dinner was great, conversation was okay. Nothing horrible, but more like boring. Not like the guy he was at the bar the other night, the one that had her laughing a few times and praying she got his number. This was a guy she would just say “thanks, but not interested” if it were the first time they’d met.
“So what’s going on? You’re different tonight. You said you had something to tell me...”
“Sorry. I do. It’s just I’m not sure how to say it and I didn’t want to say it in the beginning, after I asked you to dinner, for fear you’d leave.”
That didn’t sound good. “I doubt it could be that horrible.”
“Depends on the person, I guess.”
“Well, tell me,” she said. The wait was killing her. She’d never had an abundance of patience in her life.
He ran his hands through his dark hair adorably and she wanted to comment on it, but decided not to. “I was going to contact you sooner, but something happened this week.”
“What? Are you okay?” Was he going to say he was dying or had some horrible disease? Oh God. How would she respond to that? She’d always been awkward in those situations.
“I’m fine. I guess I’m more worried about you.”
“There is no reason to be worried about me.” She wanted to scream at him to spit it out but instead sat there with her hands folded in her lap.
“On Monday I was meeting with my lawyer over something.”
“And,” she said when he stopped. Great, he’s going to go to jail. What a rotten judge of character she ended up being.
“And I found out who you are.”
“What did you find out?” she asked, trying not to be confused, but she couldn’t help it. She was confused.
“That your family owns Granny’s.”
“My mother does now. It’s been in our family for years. Why?”
“I’m the one who’s buying it.”