Warmth filled Snow’s chest at the knowledge that Lorelei was so determined to protect a woman she could have easily deemed an enemy. Whatever had brought Snow to this little corner of the world, she was grateful for the gift. Ardent Springs had good people.
“Carrie got lucky when her path crossed with yours,” Snow said, remembering how Lorelei had witnessed Carrie’s former husband smacking her around during the summer and charged to her rescue. The fact that Carrie was Spencer’s ex-wife hadn’t seemed to matter. Within days of that rescue, Patch Farmer had gotten himself killed in a bar fight, leaving Carrie with a baby on the way and nothing else. “Sometimes things happen for a reason.”
“You mean like when two people fly off to Vegas and find themselves unexpectedly hitched?” Lorelei asked, turning the conversation away from herself.
Snow huffed and went back to studying her menu, even though she knew what she planned to order. “You’re like a dog with a bone, woman.” To appease her friend, and hoping to kill the topic completely, she added, “Yes, we are having sex. Yes, the sex is incredible. And yes, I am disgustingly happy right now.”
With one manicured finger, Lorelei lowered Snow’s menu and caught her eye. “Just right now?”
“Yes,” Snow answered, her voice firm. “We’ve decided to focus on the present and not think about anything beyond that.” Which was a lie, since all Snow could think about was everything beyond that. She’d even had a dream the night before in which a little boy with dark curls and startling blue eyes raced up to her, Caleb close on his heels. Their smiles were so alike, Snow had jolted awake with a suffocating yearning in her chest.
Releasing the menu, her friend said, “You’re not fooling anyone. You’ve got ’til death do us part written all over you.”
“We’ve been together less than two weeks.”
“You married the man nearly two years ago,” Lorelei argued.
Before Snow could form a rebuttal, Carrie returned to the table, doing the same side maneuver she’d used before. “What did I miss?”
“Snow’s in denial,” Lorelei said.
“Lorelei’s being a pain in the ass,” Snow said.
Carrie’s eyes shifted between the two for several seconds before saying, “So I didn’t miss anything. Good. We need to order. I’m starving.”
The air had turned chilly by Friday, when Spencer had agreed to show Caleb around the Ruby during the lunch hour. Leaning against his Jeep, Caleb contemplated the bright red marquee of the theater looming in front of him as he waited for his tour guide to arrive, but his mind remained on his wife.
His beautiful, happy wife.
Snow had recommended he give the new Mexican restaurant a call about advertising, which had resulted in landing his first new client and finding the best Mexican food he’d tasted since a trip to Galveston a couple of years before. While greedily devouring his taco, Caleb considered all the ways he would thank his wife for her suggestion, most of which involved her naked and moaning his name.
“Are you eating that food, or making mad, passionate love to it?” Spencer asked as he stepped out of his truck.
After finishing his current bite, Caleb said, “Have you tried Mamacita’s yet? This is amazing.”
The man in the cowboy hat shook his head. “Not yet, but Lorelei is demanding I take her there tonight, so it must be good.”
“Worth every penny,” he assured Spencer. Caleb wrapped up the rest of his lunch and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Thanks for doing this on your lunch hour.”
“Not a problem.” Spencer pulled his jacket tighter as he led Caleb to the theater entrance. “As you heard at the meeting, we used the money raised in October to repair the roof, so at least we won’t go through another winter with Mother Nature wreaking more havoc on the interior.”
“That was all raised with a festival?”
Spencer slid a key into the lock. “You bet. Lorelei put the whole thing together, and we got lucky when Wes Tillman signed on as entertainment. He provided a lot of equipment for free and gave a sizable donation that helped us hit the goal.”
“Wes Tillman? The guy who’s won nearly every award Nashville gives out?”
“The one and only.” Spencer opened the door and stepped back to let Caleb enter first. “There’s no electricity,” he said, drawing a small flashlight from his back pocket. “But this is enough for you to see what we’re up against.”
“Does Tillman live here?” Caleb asked as he took in the busted concession counter in the center of the lobby. “I thought he was from Texas.”