“Are you going to cook this for me? Because you basically saw the outer limits of my culinary prowess this morning.”
“I’ll cook it for you.” I’d do anything for you, she thought but didn’t say. Dangerous thoughts. All the giddy hopefulness was messing with her better judgment where he was concerned. A tiger’s stripes didn’t suddenly change overnight, despite what the tiger would have you believe.
“What’re we having with this tenderloin?” he asked, snapping her out of her grim thoughts.
“My grandmother used to make these baby potatoes that I love and her own applesauce.”
“Am I drooling?” He pointed to his chin. “That’s drool, right?”
“Attractive.” They went back to the produce area to pick out the fruits and vegetables they needed.
Gavin got some bananas that met with her approval. “You’re going to be a good mom someday, Ella.”
She nearly buckled under the weight of that statement, coming from him of all people, the only man she could imagine fathering her imaginary children. On top of everything else that’d happened, it was almost too much to take in one twenty-four-hour period.
“El? Hello?”
“Um, oh, sorry. Those.” She pointed to the apples she needed to make her grandmother’s recipe.
“Was it something I said? About kids, perhaps?”
Ella shrugged, reluctant to let him see her emotional reaction to the subject of children. On their first official day together, he didn’t need to know how she’d once dreamed of having a big family like her parents had. Now at thirty-one, she would be perfectly thrilled to have one baby.
“We need ice cream.” She took off for the far end of the store without waiting for him. If they were going to talk about kids, she needed the kind of fortification only Ben and Jerry could provide.
Gavin caught up to her, reached around her and plucked a pint of Cherry Garcia from the cooler, dropping it into the basket. Then he went back and grabbed a container of Cake Batter for himself.
“You’re like a twelve-year-old.”
“Thank you.”
“You would take that as a compliment,” she said laughing.
“I was a cute twelve-year-old.”
You’re a cute thirty-four-year-old, too, she thought.
He trailed behind her as they headed for the checkout and nudged her aside when it came time to pay, sliding his card through the reader before she could reach for her wallet.
“I don’t expect you to pay for my groceries.”
“They’re our groceries, and you can pay next week.”
How could she argue with that? Even as her heart did a happy little leap at the mention of next week, his comment about kids and her future as a mother had popped Ella’s giddy balloon, leaving her out of sorts and not at all sure what she had to be out of sorts about. It was a nice thing for him to say, and it wasn’t his fault—entirely—that she didn’t have kids yet when she’d always hoped to be a young mother.
But wasn’t it his fault in a way? After all, she’d been waiting for him, whether actively or passively, for years. There’d been other guys. A few that might’ve been serious if the specter of Gavin Guthrie hadn’t hung over everything, larger than life and exactly what her heart desired, even when he didn’t seem to know she was alive.
No other man had a chance against the possibility of Gavin. How many times had she ended fledgling relationships with the words It’s not you, it’s me? And Gavin, she should’ve added, because he was always smack in the middle of her relationships even if he never met the guys she dated.
In the parking lot, Gavin loaded the bags into the back of his truck, which they’d retrieved from the biker bar, while Ella went around to the passenger side and got in. She watched him stow the cart in the corral before he got into the truck. For the longest time he sat there, looking straight ahead.
Ella was on the verge of saying something—she wasn’t sure what—when he turned to her.
“Tell me what I did wrong in there.”