She let her silence answer. And yet there was this stupid, crazy physical attraction thing she felt whenever he was near. What the heck was that about, anyway?
They were now standing in the middle of the sidewalk on Main Street. It wasn’t the best place to be having this kind of conversation. Her hands were shoved into her pockets, and his nose was red from the cold and she said what was on her mind anyway. “If I hadn’t taken a taxi to work that morning, would this have gone differently?”
His gaze held hers. “I certainly hope so.”
He had a way of saying things that sent a delicious shiver rippling through her body. She recognized it for what it was: anticipation. Pure, simple, in-the-moment desire and possibility.
“Nothing’s changed for me, Charlie.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “I enjoy your company. I’d like to enjoy it more, but I can’t put a label on it or make it part of a bigger plan. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m going to be staying in Jewell Cove, you know that. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try.”
The ball was clearly in her court. She knew the rules, and the only question was if she could abide by them. Part of her balked and said to listen to reason. It cautioned her not to waste her time on something that was probably going nowhere. But a bigger part of her was tired of being reasonable, and safe, and predictable. Not once in her life had she done anything wild or risky. She never threw caution to the wind or acted in a way that was less than sensible. Daniel started to fuss a little, so she started walking again, Dave taking his cue and joining her. She hoped the movement of the stroller would soothe the baby for a little while longer.
“By enjoy my company, you mean…” she asked the leading question, not sure how she wanted him to answer.
“I don’t know. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was crazy attracted to you.”
Zing went the arousal meter.
“But I can see you’re not a ‘leap into it headfirst and deal with the consequences later’ kind of person.”
No, she wasn’t.
“A date,” he suggested. “A real date. Something casual that we can do together. No commitments, no pressure. Just a single date on a Saturday. What do you say?”
A date. What would be the harm? Besides, with a date things were planned. There wasn’t as much chance of getting caught off guard, was there? A date had a basic itinerary. Dinner. A movie, something. “What did you have in mind?”
He thought for a moment. “You said you had shopping to do,” he finally said, looking down at her. “But I think I kept you from it. The Evergreen Festival is tomorrow and I’ve never experienced one. We could go together, take Daniel too, of course. That’s pretty low-key and casual.”
It certainly was. In fact, it didn’t sound very date-ish at all. She should be relieved, so why was she slightly disappointed?
“You want to spend your day shopping?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Besides, I was thinking about getting something for Nora for Christmas. I’m clueless when it comes to little girls. Maybe you could help me.”
Oh, that was playing dirty.
“We could have lunch and finish our shopping. The weather’s supposed to be fine. It’ll be a great day for it.”
Wow. When he said low-key, he meant it. How on earth could she refuse? Never mind she was planning on attending the festival anyway.
“It sounds like a nice day,” she agreed.
“Then it’s a date.” He dropped his shoulders and looked supremely pleased with himself. “I can stop by your place and pick you up.”
They’d wandered back along the dock now, nearly to the public lot where her car waited. Dave lifted a hand to George Adams at the boat works, then shoved his hands back in his coat. “He’s a good boss,” Dave said. “Fair. Good sense of humor.”
“Do you think he’ll keep you on?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. I spent a lot of years being told where I was going and what I was doing. It was all about the mission and my orders. Now that I’m a civilian, I get to figure all that out for myself. I don’t see any point in rushing into anything.”
Charlie couldn’t imagine not having a firm plan. But she was starting to realize that maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. People could become slaves to plans. And then what happened when they didn’t work out?
*
Dave stared up at the ceiling, resisting the urge to flip and flop around in the bed. He’d awakened early and his thoughts ran to Charlie and what he was doing with her. He honestly hadn’t planned on staying in Jewell Cove that long—it was a temporary fix until he could make some decisions, a way to stay close to Nora in the meantime. But something about the good doctor had knocked him for a bit of a loop. Enough that he was losing sleep over it.