Tara watched as he turned and headed south outside the door. She had to keep herself from chasing him down. Grabbing his hand. Gazing up into those deep, brown eyes and drawing him back inside.
She needed to get a grip. Her goal here was to learn as much about Elena’s Bridal as she could. She took a deep breath, tugged her sweater closer, and studied the store from records to rooms, gauging what worked and what didn’t.
By three forty-five Tara had done all she could. She texted Greg not to worry about her, closed up the store and set the alarm, and started home, thinking. The information she’d gleaned concerned her.
Maria Elena had a brilliant eye for gowns and placement, but when it came to social media and Internet presence, she’d crashed. The sales numbers for the past eighteen months had gone into a slow freefall as a result.
Tara had a love/hate relationship with numbers. She loved their objective ease, but when they added up to a serious downward trend like she saw at Elena’s Bridal, she disliked them immensely. Was this the end of independent bridal salons? Had corporate-owned chains pushed everyone to big-box settings?
The rain and sleet had stopped, but the temperatures were dropping fast. She pulled her coat closer around her and walked a little faster.
A car pulled up alongside her. It wasn’t dark yet, but the heavy cloud cover, coupled with the shortened days of mid-January, made it dusky. A woman alone needed to be careful. She averted her gaze and sped up even more, ready to duck into a still-open drugstore just ahead.
“Tara? Why are you walking home?”
Her heart did a quick tumble when Greg called her name, one of those crazy things that shouldn’t and couldn’t happen because Greg was her boss and a ladder-climbing lawyer. “You’re supposed to be watching football.”
He double-parked the car, got out, and met her on the sidewalk. “It’s freezing out here.”
“Walking warms you up.” She said it with a bravado her chilled limbs didn’t feel.
“Really?” His look said he wasn’t buying it. “Get in, the car’s warm. I’ll drive you.”
“No, Greg, really, I’m fine.”
He made a doubtful face, took her arm, and led her across the quiet street. “Warm is better. I promise.”
Warm was better. It was so much better that she could have done a little happy dance as the blast of hot air from the car heater enveloped her. She held back on the dance, but just barely.
“I went to the store and you were gone. I thought we had this all arranged.”
“I texted you.” She indicated the cell phone sitting between them. “Didn’t you get it?”
He picked up the phone, opened it, and grimaced. “I did, but didn’t realize it. Sorry.”
“I decided there was no reason to interrupt your one day off with driving across the city just to make sure I locked up. It seemed wrong to interrupt a guy and his football.” She kept her gaze on the street ahead, because making eye contact with Greg made it tough to maintain a keep-your-distance mindset. “Besides, walking makes me hearty. It refreshes the soul.”
Her sensible reasoning would have been great if Greg had been able to focus on football.
He hadn’t.
He’d spent the afternoon wondering how she was doing. Did she need help? Did she have questions? And then the one thing she did text him about, he hadn’t noticed. “I appreciate your consideration, but you’ve gone above and beyond trying to school yourself in a job where there’s no one around to train you. I feel bad about that.”
She raised her backpack and pulled out a bridal magazine. “I’ve been schooling myself for years.”
He laughed. “That anxious to get married?” He was slightly disappointed when she shook her head.
“No, that will happen in God’s time. It’s the planning I love. The structure, the helpful side of making things right. Cutting costs, trimming ribbon, planning seating. I love the logistics of weddings. My own?” She shrugged. “That will take care of itself, but being of service to others to make this special day memorable and stress-free? That’s my natural high.”
“Then why law school?” At the red light he stopped and turned toward her, puzzled. “If you love the wedding industry, why put yourself through the rigors of that?”
“My dad.”
“Ah.” Greg nodded, thinking he understood. “Family law practice. I get it, a lot of my pals went into law for that reason.”
“My dad wasn’t a lawyer.”
“No?”
She shook her head, and for the first time since meeting her yesterday, he sensed trouble. “He was a laborer. He was disabled in a work-site accident twenty years ago. Back then, it was tougher to prove fault and disabilities.”
Before the laws shifted gears. She was right.
“An attorney said he’d represent him, the company involved paid off the lawyer so he’d do a lousy job, my dad never got the benefits he needed, and we lost him to suicide four years later.”