"This is my cousin, Ellie," said Evie, accepting a kiss on the cheek from Van, then shimmying into the maroon leather cocktail booth beside him.
"I'm Tom," said the blond man, still holding Eleanora's eyes. "Tom English."
He didn't lean forward to kiss her, which she appreciated. It saved her the trouble of jerking back and creating an awkward moment. Instead, he held out his hand, and she saw it was wrapped in a white bandage she hadn't noticed earlier.
"You hurt yourself today, Tom," she murmured, taking his hand and pumping it very gently.
"A minor ski accident. I sprained my wrist on Devil's Dash." He chuckled with a low burr of pleasure as his fingers tightened around hers. "I'll be okay, Ellie, but thanks for worrying about me."
"Eleanora," she said. "My name isn't really Ellie-that's just what Evie calls me. My name is Eleanora Watters."
He didn't drop her hand. He didn't test out her name. He just grinned at her and nodded. "Okay."
"Ahem," said Van, and Eleanora dropped Tom's hand quickly, her face flushing as she looked down at Tom's friend. He had his arm draped around Evie's shoulders, his fingers dangling directly over her cousin's breasts, which heaved under a light pink angora sweater that covered her uniform. "Are we having drinks or what?"
Tom gestured to the booth, and Eleanora slid in next to her cousin, unwrapping her scarf and unbuttoning her coat but keeping it on. Van ordered a bottle of Asti Spumante, then leaned close to Evie and said something that made her blush and giggle. Eleanora rolled her eyes and turned to look at Tom.
"So . . ."
"So . . .," he said, tenting his hands on the table. "Elizabeth Barrett Browning."
"Yes." Eleanora grinned at him, leaning one elbow on the table and shifting to face him. "I love her. She's so honest."
"And passionate," he added, searching her eyes thoughtfully. "Though I confess I didn't appreciate her as much as I should have when I studied her in college."
"Were you an English major?"
"I was."
"Where did you go?" she asked.
"Princeton."
Eleanora whistled low.
"You've heard of it?"
"Sure. You know Brooke Shields? From the movie The Blue Lagoon? She gave an interview on The Tonight Show and said she wants to go to Princeton someday." She swallowed, feeling a little silly, but pressing on. "So I looked it up."
"And . . .?" he prompted, grinning at her in a way that melted any self-consciousness.
"What's not to love?"
"Your cousin said you go to college locally."
"Mm-hm." She nodded. "At Colorado Mountain College. It's hardly Princeton."
"It's still college," he said, sliding a glass of sparkling wine over to her. He held up his own glass, and Eleanora did the same. "To college. And to Elizabeth Barrett Browning."
As they sipped the sweet white wine, Eleanora felt a strange fluttering in her tummy and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, to ignore it.
By and large, these dates were gruesome-some rich boy who wanted to get laid putting his arm around her and trying to pass off nonstop innuendo as conversation. She went for Evie's sake, in an attempt to look after her younger cousin, so that Evie didn't look all alone in the world.
But Tom English seemed different. He seemed, as Evie had indicated this morning, genuinely nice. He seemed interested in more than getting her upstairs; he was talking to her about books and college. And he was so handsome, she couldn't stop staring at him.
"What are your plans for Christmas?" she asked. "Staying here in Vail?"
"No, I'll be headed back to Philly for Christmas."
"Just here for a few days of skiing, huh?"
Her cheeks flushed hot as she heard the noise of sloppy kisses directly behind her and she braced herself for what was coming. Any minute her cousin would abandon her, and no matter how nice he seemed, when Tom English realized that she wouldn't be putting out like Evie, he'd make some excuse for why they should call it a night. And she'd be left to walk home alone, again, to her cold apartment, worried about her cousin and wishing that someone, somewhere, would see beyond the waitress uniform and want to get to know her.
"No, actually," said Tom, glancing down at his wineglass, running his index finger lazily around the rim. "I was here for . . ."
"For what?"
"To get married, actually. I got stood up."
He looked up at her then, his eyes clear and blue, unapologetic and unhurt, and that's when she felt it in her gut: she didn't care that he was older or that she was his social inferior in every possible way. She desperately hoped that right here, right now, Tom English would want to get to know her.
***
Tom wasn't sure what had prompted him to be so honest with her.
Maybe it was that she sat so straight, her eyes cautious, her coat still on, her blonde hair in a neat, simple ponytail, smelling faintly of maple syrup and pancakes whenever she moved her head. She was nothing like her cousin, who had one hand in Van's lap and the other raking through his scalp as they kissed noisily across the booth. Eleanora seemed like a lady-smart and pretty. No, she wasn't an East Coast debutante like Diantha or the other girls Tom had grown up with, but there was something honest and thoughtful about Eleanora Watters, and Tom hoped she wouldn't run off the moment her cousin headed upstairs with Van. He-rather desperately-hoped she'd stay and talk to him.
Van cleared his throat loudly, his voice raspy when he spoke. "I, uh, I think I left something in my room."
"I'll help you find it," said Eve Marie, jumping up to follow him.
In a flash, Van and Eve Marie were gone, leaving Tom and Eleanora with four mostly full glasses of sickeningly sweet wine and a painfully awkward silence. Would she suddenly run away without the buffer of her cousin sitting beside her? It was surprisingly and unexpectedly painful to think of losing his chance to get to know her better.
Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her hand. "Stay and talk. That's all. Don't-don't go yet."
Her face-her very lovely face-turned to him, her pink rosebud lips tilting up in a sweet smile. She searched his face, gently pulling her hand away when she replied, "I'll stay a little longer."
It occurred to Tom that he should stop staring at her, but he couldn't. It was the first time she'd smiled at him, and his heart thundered from the way it made him feel to see her face light up. She was young and bright and ridiculously beautiful, and he'd been captivated from the first moment he'd laid eyes on her.
"A Moveable Feast," he said softly, memorizing the unusual blue color of her eyes, a blue somewhere between cornflower and lavender. "By Ernest Hemingway. That's my favorite nonfiction book. What's yours?"
"How to Win Friends & Influence People," she said. "By Dale Carnegie."
"What?" A soft laugh escaped before he could stop it. "Really?"
She nodded, grinning at him. "Uh-huh. I've read it at least six times."
"Amazing," he murmured softly. "Why?"
"Besides the fact that it's a good book?" she asked, with a hint of that sass he liked so much. "Well, I hope it'll be helpful one day."
"One day when?"
"When I start my own business," she said quietly, reaching for her wineglass and taking a tiny sip.
"What kind of business?"
She shrugged. "I don't know yet. I don't-it's a long way away. Really, it's just a silly dream probably."
He searched her eyes, wondering why it wasn't more than a silly dream. She was going to college. She was obviously bright. His eyes slid to her threadbare, outdated coat and the cheap, plastic-looking pocketbook on the seat beside her. Money. She had none, or very little. And opening businesses took more than education and smarts. It took money.
She tilted her head to the side. "Why, um . . . I mean, do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Nope. Go for it."
"Were you kidding about getting married?"
"No."
"Well, I mean . . . it's just that you don't seem very upset."
"Well, it's inconvenient," he confessed. "But no, I'm not upset. I wasn't in love with her."
Eleanora sat back, her eyebrows furrowing, her smile fading. "What?"
"I didn't . . . I mean, we weren't in love with each other. That's the truth."
"Then why were you marrying her?"
"You can marry people for reasons other than love," he said, feeling a little defensive.