Page 5 of At the Heart of It
“And the dance,” Kate continued, sounding a little breathless now. “Our first dance was Happy by Pharrell Williams. Everyone was jumping all over the place, especially little kids. I’ve never seen so much joy in one place.”
“Lovely!” Marilee clasped her hands on the table and glanced at Carol with a wistful look in her eye. “Weddings are so much fun!”
Carol gave a coy smile and dabbed the corner of her mouth with a napkin as she leaned in close across the table. “Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes we like to crash them.”
Kate laughed, and Jonah glanced over, surprised to see such delight in her eyes. They were brown, but not a dull brown. More like the color of copper or toffee.
“I don’t like the word crash,” Marilee was saying. “Attend without an invitation sounds nicer.”
“It does,” Kate agreed, placing her left hand over Jonah’s right one, which was resting next to his plate of bacon. She looked down at their pile of fingers and palms, then frowned and pulled her hand back.
But she wasn’t fast enough for Carol, whose gaze skimmed over Kate’s bare ring finger. “They’re being soldered,” Jonah said. “Her rings. She really wanted to wear them for the honeymoon, but there was a mix-up at the goldsmith and they didn’t have them done in time.”
Kate shot him a grateful look, and Jonah smiled, glad the women didn’t seem concerned by his own lack of a wedding band. Even when he’d been married, he’d never worn one. Not really his style, and his ex had never minded.
Stop thinking about your ex-wife, asshole.
“This is such a lovely place to honeymoon,” Carol said, smiling at the two of them. “You’re seeing Shakespeare in Love, aren’t you?”
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get tickets,” Kate admitted. “It’s okay, though. We’ll make plenty of romance of our own.”
She smiled up at Jonah, and he felt his heart leap up and lodge itself in his throat.
“Don’t worry, ladies,” he assured their tablemates. “We promise to keep it down from now on.”
“I know!” Carol looked at Marilee with an excited gleam in her eye. “We were going to skip Shakespeare in Love today anyway so we could go wine tasting. What if we made the tickets a wedding gift?”
Kate’s eyes went wide. “Oh no. We couldn’t possibly.”
“I insist,” Marilee said. “We were planning to gift them to someone at the box office anyway as our good deed for the day.”
“They’re front row,” Carol added. “Very nice seats.”
Jonah shook his head, not willing to let the charade go this far. “Really, you shouldn’t?—”
“No, we insist!” Marilee fished into the little pocketbook she’d brought with her, pulling out a pair of tickets. “We want you to have them.”
Kate’s gaze dropped to the tickets, and Jonah knew how much she wanted them. “We’ll pay you for them,” he offered. “Those aren’t cheap.”
“Absolutely not,” Marilee said. “I got them free anyway for being a longtime donor. We were just planning to give them away.”
“And you two look nice,” Carol added.
“Very nice.”
Jonah watched Kate’s throat move as she swallowed. She looked up at him and gave a cautious smile. “What do you think, sweetie?”
He smiled back, his chest tightening with excitement for more than the play. “I think it’s a date.”
Chapter 2
They dropped the marriage act before they got to the theater, which was fine by Kate. But they didn’t drop the “date” act, which was also fine by her, especially once the play ended.
“Here, try this.” Jonah held out a spring roll filled with shrimp and fresh cilantro, and for an instant, Kate wasn’t sure whether to take it from him or bite it out of his hand.
She decided to err on the side of caution.
“Thanks.” She plucked it from his fingers and took the politest bite she could manage. “Mmm, you’re right. The peanut sauce is delicious.”
