“It looks great on you, Jenny. I don’t think I even need to alter it. It looks like it was made for you.”
“You look beautiful.” Becky Lee said with a touch of awe in her voice.
“I’m probably too old to feel this way, and I’ve been married before, but I feel like I’m living a fairy tale.” Jenny swirled around in her dress.
Bella laughed. “We’ll make it a fairy tale wedding, just you wait and see.”
~ * ~
The next morning Bella looked up from her bookwork at the counter of the shop to see Owen walking in the door. He crossed the distance and leaned over the counter to kiss her.
“I needed that.” Owen winked at her.
Bella couldn’t help herself, she ran her tongue quickly along her lips, savoring the quick kiss. “It happens all the time. Strange men come in here for a quick kiss.”
“So you’re saying I’m strange?” Owen smiled.
“Less strange men kiss me longer…”
Owen leaned over the counter and tipped her face up to his. “I’ll show you a longer kiss.”
When he had finished thoroughly kissing her he pulled back and she was momentarily lost.
“I… ah… well, then.” She tried to clear her thoughts.
Owen just stood in front of her and grinned.
“So you just came to the shop to see if you could rattle me?”
“No, I came to see if you would join me for dinner tonight.”
“I have the boys tonight. Rick had to go out of town. How about you come over and have dinner with us. You up for that? I promised the boys hamburgers, so it won’t be anything fancy.” Not that she ever cooked anything elaborate.
“Of course. What can I bring?”
“Well, I got the meat, but forgot the buns. Could you pick them up on your way?” She seemed to do that a lot. Forget some important part of a meal and had to go back to the market.
“Sounds good. I’ll pick up the buns and be there at…”
“How about six?”
“Six it is.” Owen turned to leave, then turned back around. “Oh, I heard that you’re going to have Jenny’s wedding at Sylvia’s. She is so excited about it. Becky Lee has already talked to her and the two of them are busy planning the menu. I’m hoping this will get the word around town that her upstairs room is available for weddings and parties.”
“I hope it does, too. I wish nothing but the best for Sylvia.”
“That’s awfully generous of you, considering she took over your shop space.”
“But look what I have now. This beautiful Victorian house for the shop, and the carriage house to live in with the boys right behind it.”
“And a yard for the boys to play in.”
“That, too. Gil put up a basketball hoop for them and I swear I hear that ball bouncing twenty-four hours a day. But it really is nice. I can just glance out the window to keep an eye on them. I set up a table in the back room of the shop, and they do their homework there. On the weekends I have a high school girl who Jenny found for me come and watch the boys when I’m busy in the shop.”
Bella got up from behind the counter and came around to Owen. She reached up and touched his face with one hand. “I can’t thank you enough for finding this place and leasing it to me. I’m putting a bit of money away each month and I hope to be able to buy it from you some day.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I want to.”
Owen nodded and covered her hand with his own. He leaned down and kissed her, his warm lips pressed gently against hers. As if an invisible magnet had her under its spell, her arms were pulled tightly around him, pulling him closer, deepening the kiss.
She stood there while time stopped, lost in their kiss. She finally remembered where they were—right in the middle of her shop—and pulled reluctantly away. At least she had no customers right now, but one could come in at any minute.
“I’ll see you at six, then?”
“Six.”
Owen’s voice held a lazy, sexy tone and washed over her in a wave of heat. She dragged in a deep breath and steadied her jangled nerves. She watched as he smiled at her, turned, and silently walked out the door.
~ * ~
Owen strode up the stairs to the carriage house promptly at six, a package of hamburger buns and a bouquet of flowers in his hands. He’d remembered to walk over instead of his instinctive get-in-the-car to go somewhere usual mode of transportation. He might become a small-town man after all.
Bella’s son, Timmy, opened the door. “Hi, Mr. Campbell. Come on in. Mom’s in the kitchen. We’re going to barbecue hamburgers. Do you know how to light a grill?” Timmy looked at him skeptically.