“You’re right,” Paige told him. “Refusing to get back together with Garrett when he finally spoke to me again would be number two.”
Garrett was her mother’s best friend’s son. The women had been thrilled that their kids were getting married. Paige hadn’t just broken Garrett’s heart when she called off the wedding. Her mom still wasn’t over it four years later. Neither was Garrett’s mom. Or Paige’s grandmother. Or her aunt. Or… Okay, Paige was maybe the only one in her family who was over her canceled wedding.
“Turning down Stephen Corbett’s proposal would be number three,” she told the cats. “Turning down Adam Lawson’s proposal would be number four. Or maybe four and five.” Adam had proposed twice. “So that puts this trip at probably number six and the cat café-yoga studio at number seven on the list of things Mom just does not get about me.”
Fred meowed in response.
That wasn’t true. He was just meowing because he was pissed. He didn’t care at all what Paige was going through. Typical cat.
”Yep,” she said to Bernie, since he, at least, wasn’t yelling at her. “Dee might put this trip above the cats and yoga, but not above rejecting perfectly nice men with great jobs who would give me a good life.” She even mimicked her mother’s voice when she said the words she’d heard dozens of times.
The white house with the right number on it was the next one. Paige felt her nerves start jumping as she rolled to a stop across the street from the house Bud had described to her.
So this was where Mitch Landry lived.
Her heart kicked against her ribs as she thought about the guy she was here to see. Then she laughed lightly. She wasn’t just here to see him. She wasn’t stopping by for tea. She was hoping to freaking live with him for the next few weeks.
She definitely should have called ahead.
But now that she was finally here, looking at his house, the truck in the driveway, the work boots on the front step, she realized Dee Asher might actually think this was a great idea.
Mitch had spent less than thirty-six hours in Appleby, Iowa, but he’d won the town over. He’d saved their big Apple Festival. Single-handedly. He’d also charmed everyone he met. He was good-looking, friendly, able to fix anything, and, seemingly, thought Paige was amazing.
The living a thousand miles away in Louisiana was certainly a checkmark in the “con” column, but Dee wanted Paige married and settled down. She might be willing to overlook the fact that the guy who had finally gotten Paige to put her toothbrush in his bathroom would take her baby girl so far from home.
Paige rolled her eyes. Actually, Dee might appreciate that too. Paige was a huge pain in Dee’s ass.
“Okay, this is it,” she said to the cats. She pivoted to look into the back seat where Calvin, Eddie, and Tiny Tim were sleeping.
Initially, the other three had agreed with Fred on her Worst Cat Mom of the Year nomination, but they’d given up yelling about it two hundred miles back or so.
It had been a long trip.
Paige turned back to study Mitch’s house. Her heart knocked against her ribs again, and she blew out a breath.
He said he’s crazy about you. You were planning to be here in another three weeks for the wedding anyway.
She had agreed to be his plus one for his cousin’s wedding to one of Paige’s friends, Tori.
Tori, Paige’s now ex-veterinarian, was an Iowa girl who had fallen for a Louisiana boy and moved her life to the bayou. Mitch had tagged along with Tori and her fiancé, Josh, last summer on the trip to fetch a bunch of animals Tori couldn’t leave behind. Paige and Mitch had met over the back end of an alpaca when Paige had stopped by to say hello.
There had been instant sparks, and Mitch hadn’t needed to sleep on the couch in the den at Tori’s mom’s house that night.
It had been the perfect fling. He’d been hot and funny and charming and had done things to her body that she feared had ruined her for other men. Then he’d been gone the next morning by six a.m. No awkward breakfast conversation, no learning how she liked her coffee, no chance of running into her mother and getting hopes up about wedding dress shopping.
“Tori wouldn’t be friends with a guy who hacks people up with a chainsaw,” she told Bernie.
Bernie finally meowed in return.
Paige nodded. “You’re right. I definitely wasn’t worried about any murderous tendencies when we were having the hottest sex of my life.”
Fred yowled.
“Hey, I don’t need your judgment,” she told the cat. “He’s also been texting. So he hasn’t forgotten about me. Or written me off entirely. Hell, he mentioned moving to Iowa to see what this might turn into.”
Her stomach flipped at that. She wasn’t sure if it was a good flip or a bad flip, though. When he’d showed up in Appleby two weeks after Christmas, again with Tori and Josh, Paige had been shocked by how happy she was to see him. And how intense their chemistry was the second time around.
Then he’d mentioned that he wouldn’t mind relocating to Iowa, and it had freaked her out. She did not want a serious relationship, and a guy leaving his family and job just to “see what could happen” had seemed like a kind of major commitment.
And now, here she was, about to knock on his door and ask if she could stay for the next three weeks. Or three months.
He was so going to take this the wrong way.
“Reason number five that this is a bad idea,” she told the cats. “Mitch Landry is going to think I want to be his girlfriend.”
Bernie meowed again. So did Calvin. As if they agreed with her.
Dammit.
“The way my luck goes, he’ll be proposing by Wednesday,” she told Fred, who had climbed into her lap to look out her window at the house too.
Fred looked up at her and meowed.
“Okay, I won’t turn around and get right back on the road,” she promised. “But I’m warning you now, the second he pulls out a ring, we’re out of here.”
She put Fred on the seat next to Bernie, rolled the windows down partway, shut the car off, took a deep breath, and got out.
She was here. In spite of the five very convincing reasons, this was a bad idea. Not to mention Fred’s general opinion about the whole thing.
She ran a hand through her hair and looked down at the t-shirt and capris she had on. It was January. It had been twelve degrees when she’d left Iowa. Twelve. She was now standing here in a short-sleeve baby blue t-shirt and denim capris. It wasn’t hot. Not at all the steamy weather she associated with Louisiana. But it was in the mid-fifties, and for a girl who’d grown up in Iowa, this felt downright balmy right now.
So, good weather in January. There was a good reason for this trip.
It was nice to know there was one.
She started up the front walk.
Please be home. Please be happy to see me. Please don’t let this be worse than the time I almost died choking on the chocolate cake when Stephen proposed at Vincenzo’s.
It couldn’t be worse than that. Right?
She never reacted well to being proposed to. Always because it was a shock and always because no way, thank you very much, no matter what.
But yeah, that time she’d almost inhaled cake into her lungs in a fancy restaurant in front of fifty people, and the resulting hacking and coughing and watering eyes and smeared mascara had not been pretty.