One Day in Apple Grove(33)
“But what about the pie?”
She looked down at her pie, topped with berries and whipped cream, and slowly smiled. “There’s always room for pie.”
He pulled out her chair and couldn’t resist testing her reaction by brushing his fingers along the nape of her neck. The shudder she tried to suppress confirmed what he’d been wondering. Caitlin Mulcahy could not help but react to his touch. It was a good feeling to realize he was not the only one affected. Besides, it was all her fault, talking about hands and having his mind wander to what else his hands could do besides heal.
Struggling to redirect his thoughts, he focused on dessert. Sampling a few bites, he had to ask, “Why don’t they serve their pie like this at the diner?”
Caitlin grinned. “It’s the way my great-great-grandma always served it. Molly Mulcahy was a canny woman, who knew the way to my great-great-grandpa’s heart was through his stomach.”
“Not all men can be bought with food.”
She sipped her coffee and let her gaze linger on him. A zing of electricity ricocheted off his heart and sent sparks of awareness to every single nerve ending in his body. Digging deep, he fought for control. He didn’t think she had any idea that she’d tied him up into a reef knot—one of the strongest knots a sailor could use—the more tension on it, the tighter the knot became. He wasn’t about to mention it—yet.
“Can you?”
For a moment he couldn’t remember what she’d just said, but then his brain took pity on him and he remembered. There was a time when he’d have given his right arm for a home-cooked meal, but he’d survived eating MREs—and he’d survived his second tour overseas. Maybe the way to his heart was through his stomach. “I’m in danger of saying yes…this pie tastes amazing with the toppings.”
“I wish I’d have had the chance to get to know my great-great-grandmother…other than through some of the recipes handed down to my dad along with some of her sage advice.”
“But that’s how you do get to know her.” Jack watched the way Caitlin slipped a bite of pie off the fork between full, soft lips and had to look away. Do not think about those lips.
“There’s a picture of her and my great-great-grandfather on the mantelpiece in the living room.”
“Family ties run strong in the Gannon family too.”
“Do you miss your folks much?”
He stopped to think about it. “I do and I don’t.”
“Can’t you decide?”
“I spent all of my life surrounded by their love and guidance, and then spent a chunk of my adult years in the navy—after I was injured, I used the college credits I’d earned during the navy and went to med school…I guess I got used to being on my own.”
“I’ve never been away from home,” Caitlin confessed to her plate.
He wondered why she sounded so sad. “Didn’t you go away to school?”
Caitlin shrugged. “That was community college, and I was only away while I was attending classes.”
“Not the same as living in a dorm.”
She frowned into her coffee cup. “No. It’s not. Gracie was the only one of us who went away to school. And she’s forever griping about Apple Grove. Her list of reasons to leave gets longer by the day.”
“So she’s planning on leaving town?”
Sadness filled Cait to overflowing. “Yeah.” The reality of Mulcahys being run by someone other than herself and her two sisters was inconceivable, but fast becoming a reality. “She’s waiting to hear back from a recruiter in Columbus.” She hesitated before adding, “I can’t decide whether to root for her, fingers crossed that she gets the job…or pray they hire someone else.”
Intentionally pitching his voice low, he asked, “Then wouldn’t her dreams of making a life for herself in the big city be squashed?”
Cait didn’t answer for the longest time. When she raised her gaze to meet his, he was sorry to see the moisture gathering in her grass-green eyes. “It’s not that so much as thinking that I might lose her too. I’ve already lost Meg.”
“Have you?” he asked, rising from his seat and rounding the table to stand beside her.
She looked so alone in that one moment and then she closed her eyes and sighed. “It feels that way. It’s so hard, what with Pop and Mary getting serious, Meg married and going to be a mother of three by summertime. If Grace leaves, where will I be?”
“Ah,” he said, taking her hand and tugging her to her feet. “Walk with me, Cait, and tell me what dream you set aside so that you wouldn’t leave your family with another hole in it.”