11. A Wish and a Miss

11

A WISH AND A MISS

Although we’d left it open-ended as to when we’d go to Cottonwood for dinner, I couldn’t help wondering, as a day passed and then another, whether Seth had decided that getting any more serious about the town amnesiac wasn’t such a good idea after all and that he was currently indulging in the 1920s version of ghosting a person.

In which case, it was probably better for me to try to get out of here.

This time, I sat in the back parlor, which overlooked Ruth McAllister’s garden. It was a lovely little spot, not really big enough for a lawn, but with beds full of roses and old-fashioned flowers like foxgloves and hydrangeas and long spikes of hollyhocks. I felt intimately acquainted with the space at the moment, considering I’d spent all morning helping Ruth pull weeds out of the flowerbeds and spray whiteflies with a little copper sprayer full of a mixture of water and white vinegar, which she claimed was a sovereign remedy for the annoying pests, always a problem in this dry climate.

I supposed that was one thing that hadn’t changed much over the past hundred years, since my mother employed a similar method to deal with the whiteflies in our yard in Flagstaff.

Anyway, both my feet and my back hurt, although at least I’d been working while wearing the new flats I’d gotten from the mercantile two days earlier and hadn’t been standing in heels for the better part of three hours.

Both Ruth and Timothy were gone, saying they had an errand to run in Prescott and that they’d be back sometime in the late afternoon. Ruth had even offered for me to come along, but I’d politely excused myself. Having the run of the house for a while seemed like an appealing prospect, especially since I knew it would be easier to concentrate on using my magic if no one else was around.

A clock ticked loudly on the mantel, but it was the only real sound in the room except for the happy buzzing of bees and the faint rustle of leaves in the trees outside the open windows. It was warm, although not unpleasantly so; the weather had continued to cool from its peak the day I arrived in 1926, and some clouds forming to the east seemed to signal we might get an early monsoon storm.

Or maybe it wasn’t early for this day and age. I had no idea how much the climate had shifted between then and my own now, and in the end, I supposed it really didn’t matter.

Not if I wasn’t planning to stay here.

I closed my eyes and breathed in and out. Visualizing my room back home hadn’t seemed to help me very much in my first attempt at this, so this time I was trying a different tack, one I hoped might be successful.

Rather than narrowing my focus, I was going to take it as wide as possible.

I thought of Jerome’s narrow streets filled with self-driving cars, with people taking selfies in front of the shops and restaurants or at the gorgeous overlook just a few yards from Rachel’s store, where you could stand in front of the railing and get an amazing shot of the Verde Valley and Sedona’s red rocks beyond. And then I made my focus expand even further, taking in the narrow stripe of Interstate 17 as it cut through the northern half of the state, ranging from my hometown in Flagstaff all the way down to Phoenix. Cars moving there, too, and jets in the air, full of people traveling with laptops and tablets and phones, all those indispensable items in a world that the residents here in 1926 couldn’t even begin to imagine.

That was my world…the world of the twenty-first century. I belonged there, not more than a hundred years earlier.

For just the barest second, the room seemed to waver around me. I caught a glimpse of a space of similar dimensions, only with one wall missing and everything else painted bright white. Soft furniture entirely unlike the prim Victorian-era pieces that surrounded me now, and the faintest background hum that I thought must be coming from an air conditioning unit.

Just as quickly as it had come, though, the vision disappeared, and I was still sitting in Ruth’s back parlor, with a soft breeze blowing at the curtains.

Damn it.

I’d been close, though…much closer than I’d been last time. Although I couldn’t be sure, I guessed I might have been seeing what this house looked like now, in my proper century. Part of the reason why I’d attempted this exercise here rather than in my bedroom was that I’d thought it would be better to emerge in a TV room or family room, rather than someplace much more private.

And the magic had almost worked. True, I had no real way of knowing whether what I’d witnessed had been from my actual year or one even five or ten years earlier, but it definitely hadn’t been 1926 or anything close, despite not catching a glimpse of any technology that might have provided better clues to the decade I was seeing.

I rubbed my palms over my pleated skirt, then got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen. Ruth had told me there was a pitcher of lemonade in the icebox, and a cool, refreshing drink felt like just what I needed right then.

After pouring myself a glass, I leaned against the butcher-block countertop and glanced around me. As always, the kitchen was spotlessly clean, with the breakfast dishes dried and put away before Ruth and Timothy left on their errand and the damp rag hanging on its hook by the door. I had to admit it was a cheerful place, what with its yellow-painted cabinets and checked curtains at the windows, but it wasn’t my place. Even that teeny glimpse of this house in the future made me realize I didn’t belong here.

Especially if Seth had decided I was a bad bet.

Just as those unhelpful thoughts were passing through my mind, someone knocked at the door. At once, I set down my glass of lemonade and went to answer it. Back in the day — or, I supposed, forward in the day — I would never have answered the door if I wasn’t expecting someone, because otherwise it would have been some kind of solicitor, but I knew that wasn’t how people operated here. Other McAllisters seemed to drop by Ruth’s house all the time, whether to leave some flowers from their yard, or a jar of honey, or just to chat a bit.

Definitely a social bunch. But then, it wasn’t as if they had phone screens to distract them. In a way, I was still kind of surprised by how much I didn’t miss my cell phone, the constant pull of social media or texts from friends or just my mom sending me the latest image from her garden in bloom. Even on quiet days in this Jerome of the past, there always seemed to be enough happening right in front of me that I was just fine with focusing on the here and now.

I didn’t recognize the boy standing on Ruth’s front porch, although, since I didn’t get the tingle I usually felt when I encountered a strange witch or warlock, I guessed he must be a civilian. He looked around thirteen or fourteen, maybe a little older, thin and wearing shabby linen pants with suspenders and a shirt that could use a good bleaching or three. Dust smudged his cheek, and that, in addition to the matching blotches of reddish dirt on his clothing, made me think he must work at the mines.

So much for child labor laws.

“Miss Rowe?” the boy asked, and I nodded.

He handed over a folded piece of paper, which also bore a few smudges. “Mr. McAllister asked me to give this to you.”

“Thank you,” I said, mystified…or possibly not so mystified. Maybe this was Seth’s way of dumping me by proxy.

Having delivered the letter, the boy nodded at me before hurrying down the porch steps.

All right, then.

I closed the door and went back into the kitchen, thinking it might be a good idea to have a few more sips of lemonade before I opened the piece of paper from Seth.

If it was even from him. There were a whole lot of “Mr. McAllister”s in Jerome.

A silly idea, though. Why would any of the other McAllister warlocks have anything to do with me?

Well, except Charles, possibly, except I had no idea why he’d want to drop me a note. He’d made it pretty clear that he wasn’t terribly thrilled with me.

Unless he was trying to warn me away from his brother.

I swallowed some more lemonade and found myself wishing it was a margarita. What a stupid idea Prohibition was, anyway. How long had this bullshit even lasted?

Due to my general disinterest in U.S. history, I couldn’t remember. Was it during the Depression? Or had they repealed the dumb thing as World War 2 broke out, figuring it probably wasn’t too smart to force their soldiers to be sober when they were on leave?

Not that it mattered, I supposed. I was certainly in the heart of Prohibition now, so it wasn’t as though anything about the situation was going to change any time soon.

And then I opened the letter. No envelope, not even a seal, so the contents of it could have been easily read by the boy who’d brought it here, even though I didn’t see any signs of the telltale dirt smudges he would have left behind.

Dear Miss Rowe,

I apologize for my neglect over the past couple of days. Work has been very busy at the mine, so I thought it better for things to slow down a bit before we attempted another meal together. Would you be available for dinner in Cottonwood tomorrow night?

If so, you can leave me a note at my house. Just tuck it under the doormat.

Your friend,

Seth McAllister

He wasn’t dumping me, or playing the ghost game. No, he was just working ten-plus hours a day so he could save up for a bigger house, maybe get another promotion.

The relief that flooded through my body was so extreme, I wanted to shake my head at myself. I knew I absolutely should not be getting so emotionally invested in Seth McAllister…and the more I tried to believe that, the more I knew I’d never be able to stay away.

Even if I’d come just that much closer to returning to my own time. Shouldn’t I politely decline his invitation and tell him it seemed clear he was too busy to see anyone right now, and that I thought it better if we both went our separate ways?

Well, that would have been the logical thing to do. Too bad I was feeling anything but logical at the moment. All I knew was that I wanted to spend as much time with him here as I could. If I ended up returning to the twenty-first century, my disappearance would hurt him…and yet I had to believe it would hurt him even more to know I was here and had decided I didn’t want to see him anymore.

I’d appeared mysteriously…and maybe I’d disappear the same way. In the meantime, I needed to steal these moments with Seth when I could.

It felt a little strange not to lock the door behind me as I left to go to Seth’s bungalow, but as far as I could tell, Ruth and Timothy didn’t seem to bother much with door locks. True, any witch or warlock worth their salt didn’t need a key to get in and out of a place, and yet that wasn’t what was going on here. No, it seemed as if all the neighbors on this street looked after one another, and didn’t appear to worry too much about the unruly denizens of the boarding houses and hotels on Main Street making their way up here to see if the homes contained any valuables worth taking.

A subtle enchantment…or merely a simpler time?

Just as I was walking down the front path to the sidewalk, a woman about my age or maybe a little younger came closer, expression curious. She had pale blonde hair and pale blue eyes, and her skin was very fair as well, giving the impression of someone who looked as though she was beginning to fade around the edges.

“Hello,” she said. She had a light, pretty voice, one that matched her appearance. Like mine, her white dress was made of cotton and reached a little below her knees, but it was much fancier, with a lot of pintucking and tone-on-tone embroidery. “Are you the girl who’s staying with Ruth and Timothy McAllister?”

“I am,” I replied. “I’m Deborah Rowe.”

And I extended a hand — one I’d remembered at the last minute to cover in the single pair of thin kid gloves Molly McAllister had provided, along with the darlingest little cloche hat made of fine straw she had included in my latest batch of clothing.

The girl was also wearing gloves, although finely crocheted ones, and the hat that covered her head was wide-brimmed, something I thought wasn’t completely in fashion in the 1920s but definitely provided much more sun protection than the one I currently had on.

“Abigail McAllister,” she said. “I live just down the street.”

She pointed with a gloved finger toward a Victorian that was the largest and fanciest on Paradise Lane.

In fact…wasn’t that Angela’s house?

All right, it couldn’t be Angela’s now, but it certainly was more than a hundred years in the future.

And if Abigail lived there now, that meant she must be the prima.

No, not the prima, I corrected myself hastily. The prima’s daughter, or what most witch clans referred to as the prima -in-waiting. The Wilcoxes were different from pretty much every other clan in that we had a male head of the family and not a woman, but even I knew that when the girl who’d been designated as next in line turned twenty-one, she had a year to find her consort, her soul mate, so she could come into the fullness of her powers whenever the current prima passed on.

Up close, this girl looked barely eighteen or nineteen, so I guessed she still had a few years to go before she had to worry about finding her consort. In a way, I was relieved to see that, because otherwise, Seth would probably have been among her possible consorts. From what I’d heard, the elders — or whoever else was lining up the guys to try on the glass slipper, so to speak — did their best to avoid age gaps that were too large in these situations and almost always were looking for guys who weren’t more than five or six years older than the prima -in-waiting. At twenty-four, Seth would certainly fall into that group…as long as he wasn’t too closely related to Abigail.

Obviously, I couldn’t ask her about any of that, since, thanks to the magic I’d inherited from the Rowe side of the family, Abigail must have believed I was just another civilian.

“I wondered who lived there,” I said, doing my best to sound casual. “It’s such a beautiful house.”

“I suppose it is,” Abigail replied, although her tone sounded almost absent.

The world’s greatest conversationalist, she was not. I had to wonder how someone so listless and pale would make a good prima, but I supposed that was a problem for the 1920s McAllisters to ponder, and none of my business. I did my best to smile and say, “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you before, since you’re just down the street.”

Abigail tugged at the edge of a crocheted glove. “Oh, I don’t get out very much. But it felt a little cooler today, so I thought I’d take a short walk.” She stopped there to tilt her head up at the sun, expression now almost accusing. “But it’s starting to feel hot, so I’d better get back inside. It was very nice to meet you, Miss Rowe.”

She turned away and began walking slowly back toward the prima’s house. It didn’t seem as if she was in too much of a hurry to get out of the sun, but maybe she was just someone who naturally dawdled.

If she didn’t go outside too often, that might explain why she looked so languid and pale.

I shrugged, then continued in the opposite direction, toward Main Street and Seth’s bungalow just a block or so below. In the funny little bag Ruth had given me, just big enough for a tube of lipstick and a few folded dollar bills, was my reply to his note.

Dear Mr. McAllister,

I completely understand being busy. Friday night in Cottonwood sounds like an enjoyable evening. We can meet at six-thirty at your Aunt Ruth’s house and go from there. If that time doesn’t work for some reason, please just send me another note, and we can arrange for a different meeting time.

Yours,

Deborah Rowe

Of course, I wasn’t Seth’s, not really. And I’d had to rewrite the note three or four times, trying to get the cursive I hadn’t used since grade school to look like something someone from this era would have written. Eventually, though, I thought I got it close enough to resemble handwriting that wouldn’t rouse too much suspicion.

Now all I had to do was wait until Friday night.

I hadn’t received a note telling me that six-thirty wouldn’t work, so I went ahead and got ready for my date with Seth, brushing my hair and placing it in a fresh bun, and putting on the prettiest of the dresses Molly McAllister had given me, the one in a deep burgundy shade with a sash across the hips and lines of vertical pintucking. The color was a good one for me, if maybe a little dark for June, but I still thought it the best thing to wear out to dinner.

And sure enough, Seth pulled up to the house promptly at six-thirty, driving a little black roadster I’d never seen before. After greeting him — and telling Ruth I wouldn’t be out too late — I climbed into the convertible and jammed my cloche down on my head, hoping it would be enough to keep my hair from going completely cattywampus during our drive down the hill.

“Is this really yours?” I asked Seth as he sat down in the driver’s seat.

“It is,” he replied. “I bought it from one of the foremen at the mine when he got married and needed something a little more practical.”

We pulled away from the curb, and I said, “I’ve never seen it before.”

Those words might have come out a little too accusing, but Seth only smiled. “Well, I don’t drive it much if I’m just here in town. My bungalow has a garage I built out back, and that’s where it stays during the week. But obviously, we need a car to drive to Cottonwood.”

That was for sure. Even now, we were passing through downtown Jerome, past the restaurants and bars and boarding houses, and then starting down the hill toward the high school. After that came a real hairpin curve, one that led us to the section that sloped downward for quite a ways before we once again made a ninety-degree turn and were now pointed right toward Clarkdale and Cottonwood.

It was a drive I’d made plenty of times before — even in my day, Jerome didn’t have anything resembling a grocery store, so I had to go down the hill any time I needed to stock up — but it felt utterly different in Seth’s convertible, with the noisy engine banging away under the hood and the warm wind doing its best to pull my hair free from underneath the close-fitting hat I wore. His car didn’t seem to have a radio, but if it had, I would have asked him to turn up the tunes so I could enjoy even more of the experience.

Soon enough, though, we drove through the outskirts of Clarkdale, which did look very different from its modern-day incarnation. Gone were the suburbs that had been built in the early twenty-first century, or the scattered custom homes in the hills. The only things that appeared the same were the park and the buildings clustered along its one main street, although now they were shiny and fresh and new, obviously built to accommodate the overflow of miners from Jerome and the people who worked at the smelter just outside town.

More open land between Clarkdale and Cottonwood, since those areas wouldn’t be developed for probably another fifty or sixty years, but, just like in Clarkdale and Jerome, the storefronts along Main Street in Cottonwood were recognizable enough, even if the businesses that occupied them were very different from the ones in my time.

Seth stopped in front of a building that would house a real estate office a century from now. At the moment, though, it had a sign up top that said “Copper Café,” and the friendly smells that wafted out every time someone opened the front door told me it had a very different occupant in 1926 than it did in my time.

“It’s nothing fancy,” he said as he opened the car door for me and then offered a hand to help me out. “But the food’s really good, and at least it’s a change of scenery from Jerome.”

“I’m not much into ‘fancy,’” I told him as we walked toward the entrance to the restaurant, a statement that was as true for me now as it had been in the twenty-first century. “So I’m sure if you like it, I’ll like it, too.”

He ducked his head at that comment, as if a little embarrassed by my vote of confidence, although that didn’t stop him from reaching out and opening the front door to let me into the small waiting area. Ceiling fans churned away overhead, making the interior comfortable enough, if not the same as having real air conditioning.

And although maybe it wasn’t the Ritz or anything, the restaurant was definitely a step up from the English Kitchen, with tables rather than booths and fun mosaic tile on the floor. A cheerful-looking woman in her forties and wearing one of the now-familiar drop-waist dresses came up to us. Her gaze was faintly speculative as she looked me over before saying, “Evening, Seth. I have a nice table by the window, if you’d like.”

“Thanks, Marie,” he responded. “That would be wonderful.”

She led us over to the table in question, then handed us a pair of menus made of stiff cardboard. From what I could tell, this seemed to be the 1920s version of a steakhouse, with lots of beef and a few chicken and pork selections.

Not for the first time since coming here, I wished I could have had a glass of wine with all this great food. Wine wasn’t as big a deal in Flagstaff as it was down here in the Verde Valley, thanks to the major differences in their climates, but because of Connor and Angela owning a vineyard and making sure bottles got handed out as gifts at the holidays, I’d drunk a lot more wine than most people in their early twenties most likely would have. These days, it just felt weird to have a nice dinner without it.

But I knew I’d probably make Seth’s head explode if I commented on the lack of a nice cab to go with our steaks, so instead I asked, “Do you have any favorites here?”

“Everything’s good,” he replied. Since he’d barely glanced at the menu before setting it down, I had to believe he already knew pretty much everything on it. “I suppose it depends on what you’re in the mood for.”

With Ruth and Timothy out of the house for most of the day, I hadn’t bothered with a big lunch, just some fruit and a piece of cold chicken. Looking at everything offered at the restaurant, I had to keep my stomach from growling.

“Oh, a steak and a baked potato would be nice,” I told him.

Or…was that too extravagant? The menu I’d been given didn’t have any prices listed on it, so I had no idea how much any of this would even cost. Not that I had much frame of reference in a place where I’d seen a pair of pretty leather shoes in the mercantile going for the princely sum of $7.00. You couldn’t even get a burger for that much where I’d come from.

“Exactly what I was going to have,” Seth said, and he smiled at me from across the table.

All right, so I hadn’t been too out of line with my selection. Sitting there with him, however, I thought I noted some faint shadows under his clear blue eyes, and even though his expression was pleasant enough, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on in his life, something that might have been a bit more stressful than merely having to work long hours.

If I’d known him better, I might have asked. As it was, I had to be glad that a waitress came along right then — wearing the same plain black dress with a white collar that Maria had had on, apparently the restaurant’s uniform — and asked us if we’d like water or tea or lemonade. Tea seemed like the safest thing to have, since wine wasn’t an option, and Seth requested it as well.

“I’m sorry I disappeared this week,” Seth told me once we were alone. “But I had to work overtime at the mine, and I didn’t have the time to stop by Ruth and Timothy’s house to see you.”

“It’s fine,” I said. Even as tired as he looked, I was still glad to be sitting across the table from him, glad to hear his voice…and, although I knew I shouldn’t have felt that way, glad I’d been unsuccessful at sending myself back to the twenty-first century. “Your aunt’s kept me pretty busy.”

“That a fact?” he replied, an amused glint in his eyes. “Has she taught you her canning secrets yet?”

I couldn’t help making a face. “Mercifully, no…but that’s probably because it’s not the right season for that kind of thing. But I’ve learned a lot more about tending a garden than I’d planned, and I think I’ve almost got the whole cornbread thing nailed. I suppose I’ll just have to see when it comes time to make another batch.”

His expression grew confused. “‘Nailed’?” he repeated.

Damn it. I’d been doing my best to avoid as much slang as I could, but it hadn’t even popped into my mind that people might not have used that expression in the 1920s. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have nails back then.

I tried my best to smile and brush it off. “Oh, it’s something I heard someone say once. It just means to do well at a particular task.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, although he still looked a little bewildered, as if he was pretty sure he’d never heard of a single instance of someone using the word that way.

The waitress came back with our iced teas, and since Seth and I both wanted the same thing for our meals, the ordering process went smoothly. Soon enough, we were left alone again. We both picked up our drinks and had a sip — even as I wished we had some straws — and for a moment, that was all right.

But I could tell something must be going on, because we’d never been this awkward around each other before, not even that first time I’d woken up in his bungalow…my rented bungalow in the twenty-first century…with absolutely no idea how I’d gotten there.

Maybe we hadn’t yet gotten to a point in our relationship where I should be asking probing questions, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“Possibly it’s not my place to ask,” I ventured. “But…is everything all right?”

At once, the brooding expression he’d worn vanished as if it had never been. “Oh, sure,” he said, and smiled. “There’s just been a lot happening at the mine this week.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

He chuckled, and the sound seemed pretty genuine to me. “I didn’t ask you out to dinner so I could bore you to death. I promise I’ll put work away for the evening. So, tell me about your week.”

Since I could see he didn’t want to talk about it, I launched into a description of my various travails at being domestic, including the cake I tried to bake that looked as though I’d stomped on it. Through all of those tales, I did my best to keep my tone light, and soon enough, he was laughing outright at Ruth’s attempts to turn me into a decent baker.

And if he was at all worried that the woman he was interested in appeared to be a failure in the kitchen, he didn’t show any sign of it.

The food came and was excellent, the steak perfectly marbled and accompanied by bearnaise sauce, the potato melting with butter and baked to the point where it had a sweet, nutty flavor. I asked Seth about the restaurant, and he explained it had been operating here since the turn of the century, and got its beef and all its produce from ranches and farms in the surrounding areas.

That explained why everything tasted so fresh — and also why he was on a first-name basis with the staff here. It sounded as if he’d started visiting with his family as a child, whether for special occasions or because his father had decreed that Molly needed a break from cooking, and then had continued after he moved out and was on his own.

The one thing I didn’t ask was whether he’d brought any other dates here. His romantic past wasn’t any of my business, and besides, I got the impression that he hadn’t been seeing anyone else. Otherwise, Maria or our waitress might have seemed a little surprised for him to show up with a different girl, and I hadn’t noticed a single sign of that happening.

It had cooled down enough when we went outside that Seth determined it would be better for him to put up the convertible’s top. I waited on the sidewalk while he took care of that task, which was a far cry from the single button-push that kind of procedure required in my day. Eventually, though, the top was secured, and we were headed down Main Street toward Clarkdale.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said. “It was lovely.”

And it was. I had no idea why I’d thought restaurants in the 1920s would be some sort of primitive affairs — it wasn’t as if they didn’t have real appliances and gas and electricity and all the other necessities — but for some reason, I hadn’t been expecting a meal that was every bit as good as anything I could have eaten at one of Sedona’s fancy five-star restaurants.

“We’re a quiet corner of the world, but we do have good food,” Seth replied. “Most people eat at home, though. The restaurants are a special night out for most folks.”

Well, I could see that. The world in 1926 was a very different place from the mid-twenty-first century, when a few taps on your phone could have all sorts of food delivered to your door. I liked the idea of a night at a restaurant as an occasional treat, however, and not something you had so often that it became commonplace.

The two of us were quiet as we zigged and zagged our way up the road leading to Jerome. Driving in the convertible with the top up was a very different experience, more intimate, and definitely not as noisy. The engine was loud enough, though, making me appreciate the electric cars of my own time that much more.

Seth pulled up in front of Ruth and Timothy’s house, then shut off the engine before turning toward me. Almost shy, he said, “I had a good time.”

“So did I.” A pause as I pondered whether to ask him if he wanted to talk about what seemed to have been weighing on his mind at the beginning of our meal, and then I decided to put it aside for now. If he’d wanted to discuss the matter…whatever it was…then he would have brought it up, and even though we seemed comfortable enough with each other, it wasn’t as if we’d reached a point in our relationship where he would be okay with divulging his deep, dark secrets. “Thank you for asking me to dinner,” I added, since the silence now felt positively fraught, very different from the companionable quiet of our drive here.

He hesitated, and I wondered if he was going to lean over and kiss me.

No, scratch that — I wanted him to reach out and cup my cheek, bring me closer so he could place his lips across mine. Never mind that sharing a kiss was absolute madness. I shouldn’t be allowing myself to care for him, not when I wasn’t even supposed to be here at all.

But I knew I did have feelings for Seth McAllister, even after these brief moments stolen together…even when I knew so little about him.

Even though he would have been dead long, long before I was born.

“I’ll come around and open your door,” he said, and hope deflated in me like a popped balloon.

Somehow, I managed to thank him, and to wait in the passenger seat while he got out and opened the car door for me, then walked me up the porch steps. I had a feeling that if he wasn’t going to kiss me in the privacy of his car, then he definitely wasn’t going to do so here, where we’d be in full view of anyone — namely, Ruth McAllister — who might be peeking through the curtains.

Not that I’d seen any sign of her, but still.

“Thank you again for dinner,” I said.

He made a dismissive movement of one hand, then said in low tones, “I wish I could do more for you. I wish — ”

The words broke off abruptly, and then he took my right hand in his and brushed his fingers across mine, very gently, before turning and hurrying back down the steps.

Even that slight touch was enough to send heat spinning through me, and I pulled in a startled gasp. If Seth could affect me like that with a simple touch of his fingers against mine, what would it be like if he actually kissed me?

I could only hope I’d find out…very soon.