Like my office manager, this secret storage area hadn’t been my idea, but it had come with the house. Also like Vienna, it had proven very, very useful.
“I left you some books, son,” Doc Thorne had said as he shook my hand at the closing. He’d given me a broad wink. “You might find Jules Verne real interesting.”
To be truthful, I was a little slow on the uptake, and also a little overwhelmed at taking over the practice. It had taken me a solid three months before I’d bothered looking at the books he’d left behind and found the hidden catch under Around the World in 180 Days, along with the bottle of bourbon and the note he’d left me on the shelf inside. “Welcome to my secret thinking spot, Dr. Wright! A secret’s only a secret if you don’t tell anyone, so not a soul in the world knows about this spot except you and me and the bootlegger who designed it. Use it well.”
Of course, I’d told Dunn Johnson about it almost immediately, since he didn’t count. What good was a secret hideout if your favorite person didn’t know about it?
“There he is.” Dunn grinned as he watched me emerge, a little sweaty and a lot disheveled. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted off his golden-brown hair and clung to the hard muscles of his jean-clad thighs and broad shoulders. “Nice headlamp.”
I snatched the band off my head, threw it on the bookcase, and ran a hand through my hair, desperately wishing I could be suave. “Uh. Hey. How’s it going?”
“Better now.” Dunn’s grin widened. “Rough day at the office, honey?”
I rolled my eyes. “You have no idea.” I tried to motion Dunn out of my desk chair, but he tilted his head and blinked like he didn’t understand even though he absolutely did. I rolled my eyes again and propped myself against the edge of my desk so my thigh almost touched his knee. “Two words: Gavin. Mundheit.”
“Gesundheit to you too.”
“Har har.” I rolled my eyes. “Gavin Mundheit was Vienna’s man of the week. According to his dossier, he’s a sixty-three-year-old organic dog treat baker from over in Turkey Perch. And apparently, November is the busiest time of year for making them because he needs to ‘fit me in’ between batches if I want a piece of his action. Spoiler alert: I don’t.”
Dunn pushed his leg against mine in a comforting gesture. “Pause your rant. I’m still back on dossier.”
“Mmm. Dossier’s a seven-letter word for ‘folder full of documents.’” I tiredly rubbed at the back of my neck, which was tight after being in the cubby for over an hour.
He snorted. “Dossier is a seven-letter word for ‘your office manager is one loose screw shy of a public health violation.’” He pushed to his feet and motioned for me to spin around, then dug his thumbs into my traps. They loosened obediently beneath his fingers, as always. “Is Vienna in the CIA now?”
“I know, I know, it’s getting more ridiculous every day. I’m not even sure how she’s finding these guys.” I blew out a breath. “I need to talk to her, I know I do, but…” I’d rather cut off my own pinkie than be confrontational. Than risk hurting someone I loved.
“Leave it to me,” Dunn said confidently. His fingertips coasted up my skin and made me shiver. “I’ll talk to her. You won’t be needing her help anymore.”
“I won’t?” I blinked over my shoulder at him. “I mean, obviously I won’t. I never did. But why won’t I?”
“Well.” Dunn hesitated. “I’m guessing you overheard everything I said while you were in your secret clubhouse, huh? About me making some big, life-altering decisions?”
I nodded solemnly. “I was getting ready to ask for details.”
Dunn’s fingers redirected my head to face forward again so he could continue his massage. “I’ll bet you were, but you’re gonna have to wait. I have a whole script, see?”
“You do?” I glanced back at him. “Hang on, I’ll have to wait for what?”
“For tonight.” He righted my head again. “You don’t have plans, do you? It’s Wednesday. Not one of your volunteer nights for Rainbows Over Tennessee.”
Did I have plans? In light of new information, my previous agenda of more Milanos and the New York Times seemed utterly missable. “No, I’m free.”
“Good, ’cause I have a bunch of things I want to talk to you about. Some stuff about me, and some stuff about you… or some stuff I wanna do with you, I guess is a more accurate way of saying it—”
My breath left my lungs in a little wheeze that I turned into a cough, and I waved at the bookcase. “Sorry, sorry. Dusty in there. Go on.” Please go on. Please tell me in great detail exactly what you’d like to do with me, because I will let you do any damn thing, Dunn Johnson.
“Well, that’s just it, I don’t wanna talk about this here. Doesn’t feel right, you know? This is kind of an important convo. I figure I might have to do some convincing. So I made us a reservation.”
I turned around fully at that and stared at him like he was speaking gibberish, because he kinda was. “A reservation?” I repeated. “For us? Are you kidding?”
“Not kidding.” Dunn grinned. “Decided to go all out. Table for two at the Steak ’n Bait, seven o’clock.”
In a town the size of Licking Thicket, there wasn’t much need of fine dining. Birthdays and anniversaries, retirements and new babies meant popping into the Tavern with some friends, or heading over to the cute Indian place, or getting takeout pizza, or frequenting a half dozen other restaurants around town that had hardly any wait and no dress code.
But if you wanted a really special experience and weren’t afraid to pay for it—the first date to impress all first dates, or an apology to end all apologies, or a place to propose to your sweetheart—there was only one candlelit, fine-linen, wear-your-clean-boots establishment in the area that had been the scene of so many proposals they kept a tally of “Yesses” on the giant sign out front: Licking Thicket’s own Steak ’n Bait.
I’d been there after each of my graduations, and again for my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. I knew Dunn had been there when he made the All-State baseball team and again when his sister, Gracie, got engaged.
We had never, ever gone there together. I’d never dreamed we would.
Except now suddenly we were, and I was so excited I stopped breathing for a minute or so.
This was highly irresponsible of me, as a medical professional and whatnot, but holy crap, what were you supposed to do when the man you loved wanted to have a candlelit dinner for two to discuss some life-changing revelations involving the both of you?
Dunn grabbed my shoulders in his two hands and shook me lightly.
“Tuck?” he demanded, his face so close to mine that I could see gold constellations in his green eyes. “Y’okay?”
I sucked in a breath and nodded… and then kept nodding like a skipping record on Meemaw Wright’s old record player. “No. Yeah. I’m totally okay. I’m… I’m great. The greatest.” I was floating. Flying. Soaring. “I’ll be ready at six-thirty.”