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“Why not?”
“For one thing, he’s him and I’m me.”
Reggie tapped Dena’s plate. “Eat, please. You have to be healthy.”
“Exactly. That’s one reason. I’m pregnant. Who wants that? Plus he’s so good-looking and he’s nice and famous and talented. Oh, and he’s a widower. He’s still in love with his late wife, so that sucks.”
She paused. “Not that I don’t totally respect his feelings, but they make him even more unavailable. I’m just this ordinary, not pretty, pregnant schoolteacher. He’d never fall for me.”
The tears returned, but as she was with her sister, she didn’t bother fighting them very much. Reggie never judged.
“Stop saying you’re not pretty,” her sister told her firmly. “You are, and if he doesn’t see that, he’s a jerk. As for the rest of it, so what? Famous people want to fall in love. They want connection. The being in love with his late wife is a complication, possibly the biggest one. I don’t know how to fix that.”
“Me, either. Plus he’s leaving. He’s only in town for the holidays.” She didn’t mention the trouble he was having writing a song. That seemed too personal to share.
“Do you want to sleep with him?”
Dena yelped, then spun to see if anyone was sitting close enough to overhear. “Don’t ask that.”
“Why not? It’s the obvious question. Do you?”
Dena thought about how she felt when Micah took her hand in his, even just to do the pressure point thing. She thought about his smile, his laugh, and how squishy she got inside when she was near him.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I know that’s bad, but I do.”
“So, find out if he’s interested.”
“Oh, please. How do I do that? Send him a survey? Besides, I already know the answer. He’s helping me because he’s lonely, and his wife was pregnant when she was killed in a car accident, and me being pregnant makes him feel closer to her.”
“Really? She was pregnant?”
“Yes. Five months. They were having a boy.”
“I really need to keep up with pop culture more.” Reggie put down her sandwich and wiped her fingers. “Let’s recap. You’re interested in a famous rock star who is only in town for a short period of time. He’s a recent widower whose wife was pregnant when she died. You like him, and while you accept it could never be anything more than a fling, you’re interested in the fling, but worried that being normal and pregnant might be off-putting. Is that about right?”
Dena nodded.
Her sister picked up her milkshake. “I love you like a sister, kid, but I’ve got nothing. Seriously, I don’t know how you got yourself in this mess, but you are completely and totally screwed.”
“I was hoping for something more uplifting in the way of advice.”
“Then you need a different problem, because when it comes to this one, I’m an empty vessel. But I still love you.”
“Nice, yet not the least bit helpful.”
Chapter Fourteen
Toby leaned back in his chair and picked up his mug of coffee. His computer screen was divided into a grid with six pictures—his weekly virtual meeting with the corporate leadership team.
When he’d considered moving back to Wishing Tree, he’d known he would have to relocate the headquarters. His goal had been to bring as many key employees as possible. There was no way to settle them all in Wishing Tree. While he loved the small-town life, he knew it wasn’t for everybody.
Seattle had been the obvious solution. The proximity to the water and the mountains made it ideal for those who enjoyed the outdoors, and the urban areas could go toe-to-toe with any major US city. It was less convenient for him to have to go back and forth, but there was only one of him.
“You can see this from the data,” said Finian York, Toby’s favorite number cruncher, drawing Toby’s attention back to the meeting. “The testing shows there’s no measurable degradation of appearance regardless of how the pies are prepared. Taste tests show a ninety-seven percent satisfaction rate when cooked from frozen and a ninety-five percent satisfaction rate when cooked from thawed.”
“Wait,” Talia Nagy said. The marketing director sounded confused. “You’re saying the pies taste better when cooked from frozen?”
“No. That’s what the data’s saying.”
