Tess in Boots (31 page)
Authors: Courtney Rice Gager
“Yeah, it’s just…”
He lifted his eyebrows, waiting for me to continue.
“My purse is complete chaos right now.” Before I could stop myself, I thrust my purse in his direction and he took it into his hands.
“Umm…”
“Go on. Open it up and see. I can’t find a thing in there. I have no idea where my car keys are. I can be a total mess sometimes. And I think I’d like to learn how to make pottery. Really bad pottery. You should know that, too. Oh, and I go to church. Well, actually I haven’t been for a long time, but I’m going back. So if that’s going to freak you out, then you should probably—”
“Tess?” He placed a hand on my arm, and I jumped.
“Yeah?”
“It doesn’t freak me out.”
“It doesn’t?”
He shook his head. “We’ll go together. Haven’t missed a Sunday in eight years.”
I exhaled. “Oh.”
“Also, I don’t really care about what’s in here.” He dropped my purse gently in my lap. “And you want to make pottery? You can make me a coffee mug, and I’ll use it every morning.”
“It’ll probably leak.”
He shrugged. “So make me another one. I’m not interested in changing you, Tess. I want to
know
you. All of you. You wanna start filling me in some more over breakfast?”
A cozy feeling of warmth ran down my spine as I relaxed in my seat. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
He reached into the truck and pulled the seatbelt out for me. I took it, and my hand touched his. I looked at our hands, then back at him. He looked into my eyes as if he were asking permission to be close to me. I gave him a slight smile, and he leaned in to kiss me. It was a single kiss, soft and gentle. My heart swelled as he rested his forehead on mine for a moment before pulling away.
“What do you feel like eating?” he asked.
“Pancakes,” I answered without missing a beat.
“
I thought you didn’t like pancakes.”
I buckled
the seatbelt. “Yeah well, you know what they say. The way to a decent woman’s heart is pancakes. And besides, these are the best pancakes on the planet.”
He shut the door with a quiet laugh. I wasn’t sure, but as he walked around the back of the truck, I thought I heard him say something.
Something that sounded an awful lot like, “Told you so.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Courtney Rice Gager first fell in love with reading as a child on summer vacations by the ocean. Today, she enjoys writing her own humorous and heartwarming stories which are best paired with plenty of sand and sunshine. Courtney graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor's degree in communication and a minor in creative writing. She lives in Southern New Jersey with her husband and daughter.