Page 18 of The Dating Charade

Jett lifted his brow. “Do you really remember her?”

“No, I really do.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “Impossible. She was a year behind me.”

Cassie shook her head. “Believe it or not, when I looked you up in the yearbooks, your last name kept popping into my mind, and it took me a minute, but I realized why.” Cassie grinned widely and slapped one hand on the table. “Guess. You won’t believe it.”

“I don’t know. You both . . .” He paused, clearly stumped to come up with any possible way their circles could have intersected. When he kept shaking his head, clearly shuffling through possibilities, she interjected.

“She was my reading buddy at Pittman Elementary!” Cassie exclaimed. “Isn’t that amazing? In Mrs. Richardson’s class in fifth grade, we’d go every Friday to read to the first graders. And my reading buddy was Trina. Isn’t that incredible?”

Cassie took the last piece of baguette from the basket as she shook her head, amazed at the coincidence. First she’d discovered he was the fireman she’d watched out her window that day at the Haven. Then she’d realized his sister was her one and only reading buddy. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to believe this was fate.

“She was such a cute kid too. I remember how she’d get so excited whenever I came, and how she’d grab my hand and drag me to the tent so we could read in it together.” Cassie smiled at the memory, practically smelling the crayons and seeing the rose-tinted books filtered by the rainbow tent around them. “I’d love to see her again. I can’t believe it’s been more than twenty years. Makes me feel old.”

When she looked up from her baguette to him, however, she realized his playful smile had shrunk to a mere shadow, his eyes no longer twinkling.

Before she could begin to ask, or imagine, he spoke. “I haven’t seen Trina, or my niece and nephew, in a little over a year now. Unfortunately, she’s hit a rough patch . . . or rather, been stuck in a rough patch for a while.”

He must’ve seen the way she looked at him, because he shrugged and added, “But I’m sure she’ll come back soon.”

Cassie felt, and resisted, the far-too-soon urge to reach over and touch his hand. Instead, she clasped hers together beneath the table. “I’m so sorry. I hope so too. So . . .” She searched for a milder topic. “You’re an uncle, then?”

“Yeah. They’re twins.” His shoulders eased slightly as he, then she, stood. “And I tell you, if they all came as cute as those two, I’d want my house to be overrun with them.”

Cassie felt her stomach flutter, but not in the way she wanted.

“Thankfully,” he added with a wink, “I know all kids aren’t that cute.”

The knot in her stomach released. “Yeah,” she said, releasing a breath. “Well, it sounds like you have the favoritism part down pat. I’d say you are doing your uncle job perfectly.”

His smile drooped slightly, expressing the words he wasn’t saying: I want to. She just has to come back first.

Instead, he motioned for the door. “Shall we?”

Cassie grinned. “I’m the one ambushed on this date. You call the shots however you want.”

The parking lot sat at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the only light around them coming from the streetlamps overhead and the shimmer of the Little Pigeon River in the distance. Cars filled every available space. Carolina silver bells, basswoods, and Frasers towered above and beyond them.

“Ambushed. Hijacked.” Jett stopped beside her car. “Call it whatever you like, the point is I had to find a way to get you out to dinner, and I succeeded.”

“By stealing my best friend and using my own moves against me.” Cassie opened her door with a grin, the plastic bag with the words The Cobbler’s Steakhouse hanging off her wrist. She set it on the passenger seat and turned back to him, laying both arms across the top of the door.

“Well, I’ve got just two questions left.” Jett stopped at the other side of her door and zipped up his jacket. Frost blew from his breath as he spoke.

A gust of cold air ripped through her own coat. For half a second, she considered taking the keys in her hand and turning the car on to heat it up. The tips of her sockless toes were already starting to bite beneath the thin canvas of her shoes.

But then, taking the three seconds to draw her eyes from him was enough to make her fold. Plus, the very idea that Jett could take that to mean she was ready to go was enough to make her slide her keys into her pocket altogether. She had tried to play things cool and casual, but the longer the evening wore on with Jett Bentley, the more terrifying it had become to feel the warmth, the zeal, the plain old enthusiasm welling up within her. This was it. Finally, she’d found somebody she wanted to be somebody with.

“Two questions. I’m listening,” Cassie said.

“So, you’ve told me all about your family. I’ve met—and commandeered—your friend. You play tough but have a weakness for girlish romances. You’re quasi-vegetarian, all rules off for pepperoni and overcooked bacon. Love the girls at your job but don’t want the hassle of your own.”

Cassie held her face steady but felt the slap of that false statement. She’d never directly said that she didn’t want kids. No doubt, he’d surmised it from her profile. Well, not surmised so much as confirmed from the statement in ten-point bold: DOES NOT WANT KIDS.

“I laid my ninth-grade confessions on the table for you—” Jett continued.

“Which, as a free dating tip, you probably should’ve reserved such tidbits as Sharpie-ing our initials in your closet for our second date,” Cassie added.