Page 71 of At The Coffee Shop of Curiosities
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Donovan said. “I’d have loved to see you in that antique market, looking for these kind of treasures. How’s this Sunday look for you?”
“The yard sale,” I said simply. It was to be held Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I also planned to open the shop on Sunday, a rarity, to take advantage of the crowds.
He frowned. “The Sunday after?”
“I don’t know off the top of my head. I have to check my calendar.”
“Is it wrong that I want to chuck your calendar out a window?” he asked, sticking the broom under a table.
“What? Why?”
“When do you relax, Maggie? When do you have time just to yourself? Just to do the thingsyouwant to do? The things you enjoy?”
My eye twitched. “The things in my calendararethings I enjoy.”
He simply smiled at me, and I had the feeling he didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame him. I was starting to wonder if it was true, myself.
I filled my schedule to keep loneliness at bay, but lately I was finding myself becoming annoyed with all I had to do. Sometime in the last month, my quiet house had become a refuge, instead of a painful reminder that Noah wasn’t there.
“All right, because I’m a glutton for punishment, do you have anything going on tomorrow night?” Donovan asked.
I had a Community Christmas Decoration Committee meeting. Planning always started in September. “What time were you thinking?”
“What time are you free?”
I winced. “Nine?”
“We can make that work. How about dinner at my place?”
“At your brother and sister-in-law’s house?” I asked. He’d been staying with them since coming back to town. “Isn’t that too late? They have little ones.”
He lifted his chin. “I have a place of my own now.”
I nearly dropped the marker. “Since when?”
“Signed the papers on Saturday.”
My heart fluttered. “You bought a place?”
“I’mrentingMrs. Pollard’s guesthouse.”
“The Pink Peony Cottage?”
“Stop that grinning.”
“I can’t help it. That place is so…”
“Available and cheap?”
The cottage used to be a pool house but had been converted into an apartment for extra income after Mr. Pollard passed away a few years ago. “I was going to say quaint. And pink. Very pink.”
“I like pink.”
“I didn’t know that about you.”
“There’s a lot still for you to learn.”
The heat in his eyes made my cheeks flame, and I turned back to the recipe so he wouldn’t see just how much I was looking forward to those kind of lessons. He went back to sweeping, and I was hoping he’d also volunteer to mop. I despised mopping.
