you know,” Brooke went on, with a nervous-sounding laugh, “I had a crush on you in high school.”
She had? John felt a strange mixture of surprise and embarrassment. “Uh, no, I definitely didn’t know.” High school seemed like a lifetime ago.
Brooke gave him a look of disbelief. “Oh, come on.”
“I-I didn’t,” John stammered, shaking his head. Although she had been pretty enough to catch his eye back then, they hadn’t seemed to have much in common, so he had never asked her out.
“But you were the quarterback, and I was the cheerleader. We should have been a couple.”
When she put it that way, it did seem obvious, John thought. “I guess so.”
“Then you got married,” Brooke went on, “and then she—”
John froze. It was jarring to hear her chatter blithely about his marriage when he still missed Julie so much. And now he couldn’t help but compare Julie’s generous, caring, and easy manner with Brooke’s thoughtlessness and forced conversation.
Brooke seemed to notice her mistake. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I brought that up.”
“It’s okay. It’s all right,” John said, trying to put her at ease. But he wasn’t sure that it was all right. The strain of making conversation was even greater now. Trying to cut the tension, he began, “So how’s—”
“So how was your burger?” Brooke asked at the same time.
“My burger is…it was good. It was fine,” he replied, still stumbling over small talk. “How’s your tofu?”
“Do you want some?” Brooke offered. “You should try it.”
Tofu did not sound appetizing at all. John had tried bean curd a few times and found it flavorless and either slimy or spongy, depending on how it was served. So tofu fell into his life-is-too-short category of foods. He held out a hand to forestall Brooke. “Oh no, I really don’t like tof—” he began.
She held out a forkful right in front of him. What could he do? He couldn’t refuse without looking like a jerk. With resignation, he accepted the bite and chewed.
“It’s good, right?” she said, waiting for his reaction.
Good was not a word he could honestly use to describe the tofu. He didn’t like it. At all. But he couldn’t very well say so without hurting her feelings. John searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound rude. “Mm-hm. It’s, uh…interesting consistency,” he said, still chewing. It was the best he could do on the spur of the moment.
Brooke’s expression fell. “It’s nice,” she said, but her smile did not return. She looked away, drew a deep breath, and sighed.
John signaled for the waitress to bring the check. He didn’t want to make Brooke feel bad, but he did hope to wrap up the date fairly quickly. She must be able to see by now that they weren’t well matched. Stan and Holly would be disappointed that John and Brooke hadn’t hit it off. It hadn’t been a total loss, though. The evening had told John what he needed to know: Brooke was not right for him.
When he finished paying the bill, John helped Brooke put on her winter coat. At the truck, he held the door for her as she got in. Most of the five-minute drive to her house was silent. Still, as a gentleman, he was determined to finish the date as pleasantly as possible. He helped her out of the truck, walked her to the door of her small bungalow, and thanked her for having a meal with him.
Getting out her key, Brooke gave him a flirtatious look. “Would you like to come in?”
He felt his face flush. She wasn’t making this easy on him. “Uh, no, thank you. I need to be getting home.”
“All right.” She blinked in disappointment and looked up at him through her lashes. “But…we can’t end the evening without a good-night kiss, can we?”
That was exactly what he had hoped to do.
She leaned toward him.
He gave Brooke a swift peck on the cheek and fled back to his truck.
John pulled his pickup into the driveway of his snow-covered house, a lovely home built of light-colored wood logs in a modern mountain-rustic style. He parked and went inside to his children’s rooms to tuck them in and kiss them good night. White Christmas lights were strung along the walls and across the room that Daisy and Kyle shared. John hadn’t done much holiday decorating again this year, but the kids loved the little clear lights, so he had let them choose where to put them up. He gave Daisy a kiss on the forehead. Kyle had fallen asleep on top of his quilt, so John lifted him up and tucked him under the covers.
When John got to Jamie’s room, she was still awake, reading a mystery book by the light of a headlamp that perched on her forehead just above her glasses. He wasn’t upset that she was still awake. It was a sweet reminder that she was her mother’s daughter. Julie had often read at bedtime, sometimes getting so wrapped up in a book that she didn’t realize how late it was.
“Guess who should be asleep and not reading at this hour?” he said in a teasing tone.
“Dad, I’m just trying to finish this chapter.” This was a familiar bedtime conversation. No matter where Jamie was in her current book, she always wanted to read just a little bit more. If he left it up to her, she would read for hours longer.
“You’re going to have to finish the chapter tomorrow. Really,” he said, taking the book from her and putting it down. “Yes, the suspense will keep you awake. Take your light off please.”
She pulled the headlamp from her head and fumbled to turn it off.
He took it gently from her. “I’ll figure it out. You get in bed.”
She removed her glasses and put them on the table by her bed.
“All right, young lady. Nighty-night,” he said, pulling up the quilt and tucking it in around her.
“Night-night,” she murmured.
“Sweet dreams, okay? Love you.”
John shut the door to the bedroom softly, jogged down the stairs, deposited Jamie’s headlamp on the dish-covered kitchen island, and began cleaning up.
He always thought of Julie when he was in the kitchen. She had loved cooking, and they had always enjoyed the quiet companionship of cleaning up together. Now there was just the quiet. If it weren’t for Julie’s parents, who lived close by, and his best friend Dan, who came over regularly, that loneliness might have overwhelmed him. Even though his own parents and grandparents had passed long ago, his life was full of friends and family and blessings.
As if on cue, Dan Daniels opened the back door and came in. Dan was in his late fifties, with fluffy gray hair and a beard that managed to look bushy even at a medium length. Biscuit, the Blakes’s border terrier mix rescue dog, met him at the door.
“Hey, Biscuit.”
