“What if Caleb Watford was the dad?”
“Whoa,” Jules intoned, letting her mind wrap itself around that. Her father hated the Watfords with a single-mindedness that had only grown over time.
“Good thing you changed out of that sexy dress.” Melissa patted Jules’s shoulder before letting go. “Big earrings and a chunky necklace, that’s what this outfit needs.”
There was a knock on the door downstairs.
“He’s on time,” Melissa said.
Jules felt a flutter in her stomach. It wasn’t excitement, she told herself. It was anxiety.
“I’ll tell him you’ll be a few minutes.”
As Melissa left the room, Jules focused on her jewelry box, coming up with a pair of dangling earrings with multiple gold bead drops. She found a complementary necklace, six strands with scattered gold beads of increasing size.
She made a last-minute decision to put her hair up, and swooped it into a loose topknot. She shook her head back and forth, liking the way the earrings swayed. Caleb’s voice sounded downstairs, its deep timbre reverberating through her chest as she sat down on the bedside to pull on her boots.
Then she was ready. She put her hand against her stomach in an effort to quell the butterflies, took a final look in the mirror and headed for the narrow staircase.
Caleb abruptly stopped talking and watched her as she descended, a worried expression taking over his face.
“Did I get it wrong?” she asked, gesturing to the outfit. “Are we going hiking or something?”
He shook his head. “You got it right.”
She relaxed a little bit. “Good. You had me worried there for a minute.”
“So, where are you taking her?” Melissa asked.
“Do you really want me to spoil the surprise?”
“It’s not like it’s her birthday, or you’re proposing or something. Why the big secret?”
“She’ll see.” Caleb kept his attention on Jules. “Do you want to take a jacket?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
He was wearing designer jeans, an open-collar blue striped shirt and a steel-gray blazer. Like her, he’d gone middle of the road. His outfit didn’t give away a thing.
“You shouldn’t be cold,” he said.
She picked up her purse. “Okay, then let’s do this.”
“Good luck,” Melissa said as they moved toward the door.
“Luck?” Caleb asked Jules.
Jules kept her tone bright, as they stepped onto the porch. “She means in trying to change your mind.”
“Oh. I wasn’t thinking about that at all.”
“Good. It gives me an advantage.”
“I was thinking about showing you a really great time.”
They made it to the top of the stairs, and he opened the passenger door to his SUV.
“You can drop the act,” she told him as she stepped inside.
“What act?”
“You know this isn’t a real date.”
“This is absolutely a real date.” He shut the door behind her.
Confused by the statement, she waited until he was settled in the driver’s seat. “Listen, Caleb. I don’t know what your expectations are for tonight.”
He pressed the start button. “My expectations are for dinner and some interesting conversation.”
She told herself to take him at his word. It seemed counterproductive to belabor the point.
“What if I’m boring?” she asked.
He backed out of the short, gravel driveway. “You couldn’t be boring if you tried.”
Now, there was a challenge. “Sure, I could.”
“How?”
She mentally ran through a couple of ideas. “I could talk about the stock market.”
“Do you know anything about the stock market?”
She didn’t. “That’s Melissa’s area of expertise. I know. I could talk you through the process of making a turducken. It takes eight hours, and it’s painstaking.”
He swung the SUV onto the coastal highway. “What’s a turducken?”
“A chicken inside a duck inside a turkey. It’s all boneless and layered with savory stuffing. It has Cajun roots, and it’s absolutely delicious.”
“Sounds fascinating. Where did you go to school?”
“Oregon Culinary Institute.”
“Did you like it?”
“Quit trying to make this conversation interesting. First, you have to purchase a chicken, a duck and a turkey. Personally, I like to go both fresh and organic. There’s a poultry farm outside Portland that will—”
Caleb chuckled. “You’re hilarious.”
“You think I’m joking. I’m dead serious.”
“You’re going to last about five minutes.”