Page 58 of A Heart to Find
“You really do have adventures when you travel, huh? I thought some of the stuff you blogged about you made up.”
“Wait a second—back up. So you do read my blog?”
Heat engulfed her cheeks once again, and she couldn’t blame the hot cocoa since her mug had been empty for too long.
“Okay, I’ll admit that I may have happened upon it once or twice.”
Why did her voice have to squeak like that at the end?
He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest for a brief moment before leaning toward her again, his dazzling smile lighting up the room and making her face burn hotter.
“You happened upon it?”
She shrugged. “You know. People send me things. Or it shows up in trending lists. Whatever. Okay, fine. I’ve googled you. But only out of curiosity—nothing more!”
The way his lips turned up, you’d think he was the lead detective on a twenty-year cold case who had just influenced a confession.
“I really wouldn’t let this knowledge go to your head. You’ll never fit through the doorway if you let it get too big. Where’s the waitress, anyway? We need to pay the bill.”
She sensed a boatload of joyful tension between them, but he was gentlemanly enough (this time) not to gloat. Not out loud, anyway.
“Though if we’re revealing these types of secrets, maybe you can explain why you still had my number in your phone after all this time? And a New Hampshire area code?”
She smiled to let him know she was teasing, but she had been curious about those things ever since the first text he sent. She hadn’t been brave enough to bring it up until now.
He shrugged. “I don’t delete contacts. And it was easier to keep my old number than to switch over when I moved, especially since I moved around so often.”
Disappointment coursed through her. She had sort of hoped for a more personal reason as to why he kept her number in his phone. Sentimentality, remorse. Love?
She shook those thoughts out of her head, refusing to let the ghosts of the past haunt her while she had him sitting across from her, obviously wanting to make things work out.
“Enough confessions for one meal. Back to our discussion. If you could go anywhere for no purpose other than to eat the local food, where would it be?”
“Excellent question. Hmm, can it be a tour of many countries?”
“Nope,” she shook her head to emphasize the restrictions. “One place. Though the place might have a variety of foods you’d want to eat—doesn’t have to be just one food item.”
“Well in that case, I’m going to have to go with what may be considered a cliché, but it’s a cliché for delicious reasons. Italy. You haven’t eaten until you’ve eaten there.”
She asked him questions, and he answered readily, and by the time he started describing the homemade gelato on every corner, she was ready to hop on a plane and travel there for dinner.
Not that hopping on planes was the sort of thing she did regularly, and not that adventure was in her blood the way it was his. In fact, he would have said she had no adventure in her blood. And he would have been correct.
Except…
She felt the world shifting, and she couldn’t deny the feeling creeping up inside her.
She wanted to taste the foods he spoke of. She wanted to meet the people who would make dinner for a foreign stranger when he was stranded. She wanted to greet the grannies who sold homemade pasta out of their own kitchens. And though she didn’t want to do some of the riskier things he seemed to enjoy so much, she did want to stroll along an ancient street in Paris, sampling baked goods from every patisserie along the way.
She wanted to step out from the shadow of her family and the hurt of losing them.
She wanted to cast aside the need to take care of everyone but herself.
She wanted to stop sacrificing her own hopes and dreams to build foundations for those who would ultimately betray her.
She wanted to be her own person.
And she wanted to do it with him.
