with, she would definitely have chosen Bill Venable, brave fighter of forest fires, devoted father of a nine-year-old daughter, all-around good-looking hunk of a guy.
Alas, she had no such influence in an unpredictable universe, but she knew early on that she’d found a valuable ally in the man who bought her a latte.
“So, tell me more about Angela,” she said, stirring her latte and avoiding Bill’s gaze. “Does she live in Lonesome Bend?”
Bill cleared his throat, looked away, looked back. Finally nodded. “She teaches third grade at the elementary school,” he said.
“I see,” Carolyn answered, without guilt, because in many ways, she did see. “So what’s the problem between the two of you?”
“She doesn’t like my job,” Bill answered, after pondering a while. “Firefighting, I mean. Too dangerous, keeps me away from home too much, et cetera.”
“Yikes,” Carolyn observed. “How does Ellie feel about Angela?”
“She adores her,” Bill admitted. “And the reverse is true. Ellie thinks Angela would make the perfect stepmother. It’s a mutual admiration society with two members. Trust me, this is not my daughter’s usual reaction to the women I date.”
“So the fundamental problem is your job?” Carolyn inquired, employing a tactful tone. While she understood Bill’s dedication to his work, she sympathized with Angela, too. Love was risky enough, without one partner putting his life on the line on a regular basis.
Bill thrust out a sigh. “Yeah,” he said.
“Maybe you could look into another kind of career,” Carolyn suggested, already knowing what his answer would be.
Bill shook his very attractive head. Too bad he didn’t arouse primitive instincts in Carolyn the way Brody did, because he was seriously cute. “I love what I do,” he replied. “Flying an airplane. Putting out fires. It is a definite high.”
“But...dangerous,” Carolyn said.
“Well,” Bill affirmed, “yes. But I’d go crazy doing anything else. The boredom—” He fell silent again, his expression beleaguered. Obviously, he’d been over this ground a lot, with Angela and within the confines of his own head.
Carolyn waited a beat, then went ahead and butted into a situation that wasn’t any of her darn fool business in the first place. “What about your daughter, Bill?” she asked gently. “How does Ellie factor into this whole job thing?”
He sighed, shook his head again, aimed for a smile but missed. “I love that child with all my heart, and I want to do what’s best for her,” he said. “Keep her safe and happy and healthy. Raise her to be a strong woman, capable of making her own choices and taking care of herself and, if it comes to that, supporting a couple of kids on her own. But—”
Again, Bill lapsed into pensive silence.
“But?” Carolyn prompted quietly, after giving him a few moments to collect his thoughts.
“But,” Bill responded, managing a faint grin, “like I said before, I love what I do. Doesn’t that matter, too? And what kind of example would I be setting for Ellie if I took the easy route, tried to please everybody but myself?”
Carolyn toyed with her cup, raising and lowering her shoulders slightly in an I-don’t-know kind of gesture. It was remarkable, connecting so quickly with another person—a male person, and someone she hadn’t known existed until she signed on at Friendly Faces.
They were so simpatico, she and Bill, that anyone looking on would probably have thought they’d been close friends for years.
Too bad there was no buzzing charge, no zap, between them, like there was between herself and Brody and, it was a sure bet, between Bill and his Angela.
“No,” she said, in belated response to his question. “Of course you can’t live to please other people, not if you hope to be happy, anyhow.” Carolyn paused before asking, “Does Ellie worry about you, when you’re away fighting fires, I mean?”
Bill gave a raspy chuckle. “Probably,” he acknowledged. “Ellie never lets on that she’s scared something might happen to me—she just tells me to be careful. The thing is, even though she’s only nine, she seems to get where I’m coming from better than Angela does.”
Carolyn took a sip of her coffee, which was finally cool enough to drink without burning her tongue. Now, she thought, with the inevitable rush of reluctance, it was her turn to open up.
Sure enough, Bill ducked his head to one side and a quizzical little quirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a beautiful woman, Carolyn,” he said. “Half the men in the county, if not the state, must be trying to catch your eye. What prompted you to sign up with an online dating service?”
“Curiosity?” Carolyn speculated, blushing a little.
He smiled, settled back in his chair, watching her. “Are you looking for friends, a good time, or a partner for life?” he asked.
There was nothing offensive in his tone or manner, and he positively radiated sincerity. Bottom line, Bill was easy to talk to, perhaps because he was a virtual stranger and, therefore, the two of them had no issues, no shared baggage, nothing to get in the way of friendship.
“It’s not a new story,” she replied, quietly miserable. “I fell for the wrong man, I got hurt—fill in the blanks and you’ll probably have it just about right.”
Bill arched an eyebrow, waited. On top of everything else working in his favor, the man was a good listener. And all she could drum up was a walloping case of like.
He was the big brother she’d never had.
The pal.
And he wasn’t even gay, for Pete’s sake.
Carolyn squirmed on her chair, not sure how much more she ought to say. This was their first meeting, after all, and as genuine as Bill Venable seemed, it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that she was totally, completely, absolutely wrong about him.
It had happened before, hadn’t it?
Once, she’d been convinced that she knew Brody Creed, through and through. After a long string of shallow, going-nowhere-fast relationships, she’d believed in him, been convinced he was The One, taken the things he said and did at face value, only to be burned in the back draft of all that passion when he showed his true colors and lit out.
And there was that other lapse in judgment, too—when she’d thought she’d hit her stride by becoming a nanny. She’d trusted her movie-star boss implicitly, admired his down-to-earth manner, his apparent devotion to his wife and small daughter.
Until he’d come on to her, forcing her to abandon a job—and a child—she’d loved.
Carolyn closed her eyes, remembering—pummeled by—the rearview mirror image of little Storm running behind her car, screaming for her to come back.
Come back.
Without saying a word, Bill reached across the table and took her
