A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [96]
And then she and Katie left the room.
ONCE HE WAS THROUGH at the gas station–convenience store, Steven drove around town for a while, marveling at his own sense of blithe aimlessness, and finally realized he was hungry. He headed for the only drive-through burger place in town, ordered a cheeseburger and a cola, and ate in the driver’s seat, being careful not to spill anything on his clean shirt or his best jeans. He’d pressed them both, and he wanted to stay spiffy as long as he could.
Even when the burger was history, there was lots of time to go before he could reasonably knock on Melissa’s front door.
He found a flower shop, after some searching, but it was closed. From there, he proceeded to the supermarket. He’d seen roses and various houseplants in the produce sections of grocery stores lots of times. He’d have preferred something a little fancier, a big bouquet with exotic blossoms and ribbon tied around the vase, but for tonight anyhow, he’d have to make do.
Inside the store, Steven chose between daisies, rosebuds just opening up, and what was probably some kind of lily. He considered buying several bunches and putting them together, but he wasn’t sure which colors went with which. So he settled for a dozen yellow roses, stuck them, stems dripping, into their vase-shaped plastic bag, and headed for the checkout counter.
All the lines were long. Folks with shopping carts filled to overflowing, toddlers wailing with boredom or fatigue or some combination of the two. A few last-minute Louies—like himself—who’d stopped in for flowers.
Steven waited patiently. After all, a line was a line and he had plenty of time, anyway. He was caught off guard when another cart in front of his rammed into his from the side, lightly but still with a startling crash of metal.
Tessa Quinn, from over at the Sunflower Café, was standing there, grinning at him. “Oops,” she said. “Sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“Hey,” he greeted her, with an easy smile.
She took in the yellow roses. “Nice flowers.”
Steven sighed. “Yeah,” he said.
Tessa blew out a good-natured breath. “Not another man of few words,” she lamented cheerfully. “We’ve already got a surplus of those in this town.”
He chuckled. “Looking forward to the dance tonight?” he asked, having decided to make more of a social effort. Up on the ranch, outside Lonesome Bend, Kim was forever claiming that she’d trade the whole bunch of quiet Creed men for someone who spoke in complete sentences.
Tessa’s smile dazzled. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I thought Tom Parker would never ask me out.”
The line moved, and Steven held back to let Tessa go ahead of him. “And I thought Melissa would never ask me,” he joked. No matter how things turned out between them, he figured he’d never get tired of the memory of that woman swallowing her formidable pride, right there in the Sunflower Café, in front of half the town, to invite him to a dance.
Tessa laughed. “That was a surprise,” she said. “Tom must have tricked her into it.” The expression on that well-known face was priceless as she realized how the remark must have sounded to Steven. She even blushed. “It’s just that—well—the two of them have been buddies since they were little kids. After Dan Guthrie broke Melissa’s heart into about a million pieces, people thought she and Tom might finally get together—” She fell silent again, looking miserable.
“But they didn’t,” Steven said, trying to help the poor woman off the hook.
Tessa shook her head. “No,” she confirmed. “They didn’t.”
He might have asked her to tell him a little more about Melissa’s broken heart if the time and place and circumstances had been different, but the clerk was waiting none too patiently to ring up Tessa’s purchases and the line behind them stretched clear back to the freezer aisle.
When Tessa had finished with her transaction, she grabbed her grocery bags and almost ran out of the store.
Thoughtfully, Steven paid for the flowers and headed for his truck.
Once there, he got in, snapped his seat belt