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Tari shot her a quick, assessing look that Allison didn’t understand. She didn’t think she’d said anything too revealing or inappropriate. Then the woman’s expression transformed back into a smile. “Yes. We do, although we’ve scaled back a lot in the last ten years or so.”
“She keeps making me get rid of my cows,” James muttered, his mustache quivering.
Allison gave him a sympathetic look. “You still have some, though?”
“Way too many,” Tari said. “But you don’t want to talk about cows, I’m sure. Tell us about you. You’re not married?”
“No. I’m divorced. That’s really why I moved to town. To start a new life.”
“Well, it’s a good place to start one,” Tari said, reaching out to pat her hand again. “We’re glad you moved here.”
It sounded like she meant it, and Allison appreciated the sincerity and the kindness both. “I’m glad too.”
“How are things going over here?” a voice came from beside her.
She looked up to see Rob, standing and looking down at them with a beer in his hand. He met her eyes, and he seemed to be searching for something. She had no idea what.
“We’re doing very well,” his mother said. “We don’t need you hovering, as if we might say something to embarrass you.”
Rob chuckled. “I’ve come to expect that, so I don’t waste time trying to stop it. Have they said anything embarrassing yet?” His eyes focused on Allison’s, and she could tell he was making sure she was okay in her present company.
Just because she didn’t want a serious relationship didn’t mean she couldn’t chat with his parents. She gave him a relaxed smile. “Apparently, they too are concerned about your cholesterol.”
Rob groaned and covered his eyes with his hands, making them all laugh, and Allison was surprised to realize she was enjoying herself.
He wandered off after a few minutes, doing his duty as the host, and Allison stayed where she was, talking to his parents, who told her some funny stories about trouble Rob had gotten into as a kid—blowing up a shed with a chemistry set and throwing rocks at beehives. In all the stories he’d pretended that everything was just fine and that he’d planned the disaster to happen that way.
“He always was like that,” Tari concluded with a smile. “Pretending that he had everything under control, even when he got himself into the biggest messes you could imagine.”
Allison laughed at the stories and at the visual of Rob as a boy, but her heart was touched in a strange way, picturing that boy and how hard he’d tried to hide his messes.
He was still doing that. She remembered how long it had taken him to let her see his messy house.
Eventually Rob put the burgers on the grill and everyone gathered on the patio to eat. A lot of the guests had brought their own chairs, and the others sat on the low brick wall that surrounded the patio. The kids sat on the grass.
When Allison got up to get her burger, someone took her chair, so she was looking around for a place to sit when she walked up to Rob at the grill with her opened bun.
He smiled at her—a secret little smile that felt intimate and special—and asked very softly, “How’s it going?”
“Fine. I’m having a good time.”
“And my folks really didn’t say anything embarrassing?”
“They told me about you blowing up the shed.”
Rob chuckled. “That’s okay, I guess. It was a really impressive explosion.”
Allison had to stop herself from reaching out to touch him—his face, his chest. She hadn’t realized how hard it would be to act like they were casual acquaintances after they’d gotten so close.
“It looks like everyone has their food,” Rob said. “Hold on a minute, and let me get a couple more chairs from inside.”
Relieved that she wouldn’t have to try to make pleasant conversation while sitting on the ground, Allison waited and took one of the chairs that Rob set up near the grill. He grabbed a plate and filled it up before coming to sit beside her.
“Hey, Jeanie,” he said, his voice pitched to carry, getting the attention of a middle-aged woman with long graying hair and a broomstick skirt. “Can you tell Allison about how to hook up with those craft fairs you go to?”
Allison looked at him in surprise. Since he hadn’t mentioned it again, she’d assumed he might have forgotten their conversation from a couple of weeks ago.
“Sure,” Jeanie said, leaning over to meet Allison’s eyes. “There are a few that happen every year, and then I’m on a list that announces some others. If you give me your email, I can put you on the list.”
