Chapter 8      

According to Riley’s late-afternoon debrief with the Bradshaws, the sibling reunion had gone swimmingly, and his friends had been delighted to hear he and Sadie were going out again. Sadie was bound to be in a good mood too, and despite the epic thunderstorm that had rolled into Nashville, the violent bolts of lightning and percussive thunder sounding like the very sky was being ripped open against its will by a super-villain, Riley found he was eager to see her. 

Jess had screamed at various intervals while insisting he wear the only other sport coat in his closet, a tan one this time. Riley was still tugging on his ear, hoping she hadn’t made him deaf for life.

“Dad,” Jess said from the doorway as he slapped cologne on his freshly shaven cheeks, “tonight you need to pick up some flowers for Sadie. And this time you’d better kiss her goodnight.”

His daughter had strong opinions about courtship, it turned out, most of them springing directly from Disney movies. She’d embarrassed the hell out of him, asking in front of the Bradshaws if he’d kissed Sadie goodnight after their last date. He’d told her a true prince never told, and she’d simply responded, “Well, that’s really silly. Everyone knows a prince kisses a princess goodnight.”

Chastised by a second grader on romance. It had felt like a low moment. Especially since he hadn’t had a kiss to speak of.

“Flowers,” he simply replied to her latest request. “Check.”

“What kind of flowers, Dad?” she asked him, edging closer and adjusting his jacket like she was a Parisian fashion designer.

He knew a trick question when he heard one. “What kind of flowers would you recommend, Jess?”

She gave a dramatic sigh, cute as a button in her Beauty and the Beast nightgown. He’d already seen to her bath and gotten her in her nightgown. Knowing her, she’d probably have a snack at the Bradshaws’ before she went to bed. 

“Well…I think you should give her daisies.”

He’d been expecting roses. “Daisies?”

“Yes. You see, Flynn Ryder gives Rapunzel daisies for her hair. Sort of. It’s not important. Focus, Dad.”

How did she know he was starting to sweat? 

“I mean, Snow White had roses, but we figured that’s an older Disney movie. And Haley’s grandpa gives her grandma roses for their anniversary, and they’re like really old.”

The logic employed by his daughter sometimes mystified him so much he thought NASA should study her brain to predict the future of the human race on Earth.

“Where am I supposed to get daisies, Jess?”

“At the store, Dad,” she informed him in her take-no-prisoners tone.

“The grocery store?” he asked, checking his watch. If he left right now…

“Yes, Haley and I checked it out in the grocery store after your first date with Ms. Sadie. They’re by the produce aisle.”

He shook his head, marveling at their strategy. He hadn’t even expected another date with Sadie, and here they’d been preparing for it. “Okay, if I’m going to get flowers for tonight, I need to hustle.”

“Cool!” She jumped in the air. “Let’s get you on the road.”

He scooped her up, making her laugh. 

“Oh, you smell so good, Daddy.”

He didn’t hear that term of endearment often anymore. She was getting older and apparently saying ‘Daddy’ just wasn’t as cool.

“Do you know how much I love you?” he asked, stopping in the hallway.

“So much,” she cried, throwing out her hands and grinning.

“You’re my whole world,” he said, giving her angel kisses with his nose against hers.

“Dad, that’s so sweet,” she said, “but it’s time for you to broaden your world. I won’t always be here, and I want you to be happy.”

Crap. She was going to make him cry. He’d had that thought as well, but for some reason it struck him differently hearing it from her. 

“Oh, Jessiekins, you’re growing up way too fast,” he whispered, kissing her cheek. “Okay, enough mushy stuff. Let’s get you over to Haley’s house.” When he and his daughter arrived at the Bradshaws’ back door, he was running a little late. But he’d just text Sadie. He figured flowers would be a good reason for some slight tardiness.

“Hey, good-looking,” Paige said, smiling when she opened the door. “Ready for your date?”

“Yes, he is,” Jess said, hugging his leg and then running inside. “Have fun, Dad!”

“Yes, have fun, Riley,” Paige said.

“Don’t rush home,” Mark called, jogging over to the door after closing the dishwasher he was loading. “Jess is staying the night like usual.”

“Tell Sadie hi for me,” Paige said.

Riley nearly took a step back.

“Is that weird?” she asked. “I’m just so happy things turned out like they did today. They’re all so wonderful.”

“It’s good to see you on cloud nine. I’ll tell her you said ‘hey.’ Okay, I’m outta here. The girls have insisted I pick up some daisies for her.”

The grocery store was a zoo and people were cranky from the torrential rain no umbrella in the world could protect you against, but he found the daisies, except they were potted and not wrapped in a bouquet like he’d expected. The mixed bouquets had a couple of daisies, but it didn’t seem like enough.

He texted Paige, refraining from asking, Where are the f-ing daisies? Instead he said, Daisies are in a pot. Help.

She gave him a LOL and a smiley face before typing, The girls said they imagined you giving her the plant and plucking one of the stems and putting it in her hair.

Holding the pot in the middle of the crowded produce section, his first thought was, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Then he picked it up and headed to the express checkout, texting Paige back a smiley face when he got to the parking lot. Soaked, of course.

When he pulled up in front of Sadie’s townhouse, he took a moment to smooth back his wet hair in the mirror. The rain was going to make it curl up like the Oxford comma, no doubt. Sometimes he hated the humidity of Nashville. But it was home. His parents might have moved to Florida, and his ex might have made him hate the country music scene, but there was still something about the town he loved. The artiness. The creativity that seemed to blow through the air.

But rain should be outlawed on dates, he decided as his umbrella blew upward off its spikes the minute he emerged from the car. Here he was trying to make a good impression, and Mother Nature was messing with him. He fought a growl, focusing on holding the broken umbrella and the pot of daisies.

Then he heard someone call his name through the storm, and he looked up and caught her curvy silhouette outlined in the doorway. Oh, the lines… The daises almost slipped out of his hands. He ran toward her, stopping short on her blue and white Welcome mat to dry his feet.

By God, she was a vision.

Her dress was one of those little black varieties men lit candles to in pure male gratitude. It ended a respectful inch above her knees, but he found himself thinking about the mist from the rain landing on them and how he wished he could turn himself into that mist like a shape shifter. 

“It’s raining cats and dogs outside,” she said. “Come in. You’re soaked.”

He held out his umbrella. “The storm broke it,” he responded like a total moron.

Then she gave him a soft, luminous smile, and he accepted he was going to be a moron for the rest of the night.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, feeling like he was in a trance.

She took the broken umbrella from his outstretched hand and laid it on the floor outside her front door. “Come inside, Riley.”

He followed her in, her perfume wrapping around him like the fog rising from the sidewalk outside her porch. Where had the fog come from?

“Are these for me?” she asked, gesturing to the pot of pink daisies in his hand.

His movements felt like he was underwater. He slowly snapped a stem from out of the pot and tucked it behind her right ear.

Even over the thunder of the rain, he could hear her sharp intake of breath. The girls hadn’t steered him wrong. Sadie was feeling what he was feeling all right.

“I couldn’t find an iguana at the grocery store, so these will have to do.”

She surprised him by punching him playfully. “These are better. Do you need a towel?”

He lifted a shoulder. “No, I wear rain all the time. I’ve found it makes my complexion better. Don’t you?” What in the hell was he saying?

Then she started laughing, and he felt himself return his body. Was his attraction to her making him levitate or something?

“Riley, you’re too funny.” She picked up her purse, and he noted it was gold. “Shall we go?”

He nodded and couldn’t help but notice what an incredible ass she had when she bent down to pick up a perfectly dry golf umbrella resting in the corner. After they exited her house, he unfurled the umbrella to shield them from the rain as she locked the door.

“Care to share where we’re going?” she asked when they were inside the car.

The rain sounded like a million nails raining down, and he felt time slow again. Outside, there was no world. In this moment, there was only him and Sadie, with her perfume curling around him like the fog had, albeit even more inviting.

“I gave some serious thought to this after the first-date mess up,” he admitted. “How do you feel about pimento cheese beignets and pork belly pop tarts?”

She made a sexy humming sound. Oh, his brain was going to turn to mush tonight. 

“Sounds delicious.”

He started the car and took off, the windshield wipers on high. Even still, he drove slowly, both for safety and because he wasn’t so sure he wanted this moment to end. “Good. I thought we’d go with a normal restaurant like The Farm House. Sounds pretty wholesome, right?”

There was a pause, and he reached for the radio.

“Do you think we need to do wholesome because of me? Riley, I’m no farm girl.”

The rain was coming down in sheets, and this was clearly an important issue for her. He pulled over to the shoulder so they could talk and give the weather some time to settle. “I figure we worked our way through some of my hang-ups this morning. Do you want to let me know why this bothers you?”

“I don’t mean to make a big deal of it, but we went from a burlesque venue to a farm restaurant. It’s like we swung in the opposite direction. Do you see what I mean?”

“Not really,” he answered. “Sadie, it’s a farm-to-table restaurant. I loved the story I read online about one of their farmers bringing in fresh trout. They used his name and everything. For me, it was like they were honoring the man’s art. Trust me, if you’ve ever gone fishing—my dad used to drag my brother and me out—you’d know there’s a lot more art than science to catching a fish. And the food and venue look great…but that doesn’t seem to be what’s upsetting you.”

When she didn’t say anything, he turned in his seat. She was looking straight ahead with her hands fisted in her lap.

“Sadie, talk to me.”

“Some people think…I’m a goody two-shoes because I’m a preacher’s daughter, and they have this idea in their mind of the kind of woman I’m supposed to be.”

Suddenly it all clicked. “Ah…so you thought I’d reverted to seeing a cardboard cutout of you and not the real you.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. 

Then she looked up and met his gaze, and her brown eyes looked so vulnerable he wanted to reach across the center console and hold her. Funny how he’d been told he was too “out there” while she’d been penned in for being the daughter of a preacher.

“Sadie, I might not know you well, but I still see you. It’s the artist in me. When I look at something, I can’t help but see. You’re radiant when you talk about quilting, and when you showed up on Paige’s doorstep, you were brave and sweet and kind and so beautiful you took my breath away.”

Her chest rose with a deep breath, and he pressed on, “I want to know you if you’re willing to share more of yourself with me. I promise to be honest with you about who I am too, although it might take me some time to share some of the tougher stories, ones about Jess’ mom. I don’t just want to have fun with you, Sadie McGuiness. I want to know you. All of you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered. “Then I guess The Farm House sounds great.”

He fought a smile, wanting to be sensitive. “Hopefully it won’t have floated away in this storm. I mean, I won’t eat soggy beignets or pop tarts. I have my standards.”

Her mouth curved. “I’m glad you have such exacting standards. We should get a move on then.”

And so they did. The meal was excellent, and they both relaxed with each other this time. Riley was delighted to learn that besides their different taste in music and his stance on church-going, they had a lot in common. She loved Andy Warhol, which surprised him, but the more she talked about it, the better he understood her. Sadie admired artists who depicted essential truths about their subjects in their work.

Her love of family was like a hot toddy to him. She told him stories about growing up with the best brother in the world looking out for her and the adventures she’d had with her sister Shelby, who’d always urged her to spread her wings—and sometimes talked her into trouble.

She thought everyone was too busy, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, which was why she didn’t spend much time on social media and didn’t pick up her phone during dinnertime. When he’d explained he felt the same, but had to check his phone now and then to make sure everything was okay with Jess, she waved a hand and said, “That’s as it should be.”

He ordered coffee and dessert even though he was crazy full just to spend more time with her. The gold in her brown eyes was shining brighter than ever, and her laugh caught him in the heart every time. When he coaxed her into trying the white chocolate bread pudding, the humming sound she made had him shifting in his chair.

“I think we need to go soon,” she said, eyeing the empty restaurant. “We’ve closed the place down.”

And yet he didn’t want to leave. He wanted time to slow like it had earlier so they could stay there forever. “Yes, but I’m not ready for tonight to end. Would you like to take a walk with me?”

She blinked. “In this storm?”

Rain wasn’t going to send him home tonight. “You have a pretty big umbrella. Besides, it doesn’t look like it’s raining hard anymore.”

“I’d love to,” she said softly.

After taking care of the bill, they left the restaurant to discover the storm had faded. 

“There’s something special about the world after the rain,” he commented as they walked to the car.

“It’s like everything has been washed clean,” she said, putting words to his thought.

Looking at her under the streetlight, he gave in to the temptation he’d been fighting all night and touched her cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”

Her body was close to his under the umbrella, something they really didn’t need anymore. But it kept her close, and he liked that. Wanted that.

“Come on, I have the perfect place in mind.”

He drove her to the riverfront and then navigated them down to the spot that had come to mind during dinner. “There’s a lot of art to love in Nashville,” he told her, “but The Ghost Ballet sculpture is one of my favorites.”

The giant curving metal seemed to reach for the sky without ever quite reaching it.

Sadie studied it next to him. “From the name, I expect it’s supposed to have something to do with ballet and movement, but to me it’s like a dream.”

He turned toward her. “Tell me more.”

“Sometimes the parts of a dream never quite meet, and that’s how I see those metal staircases. It’s like they can’t connect.”

“Maybe they’re already connected,” he said, pointing to the base of the sculpture and the metal pins anchored into the two pieces. “It’s like each part needs to be free to move in its own way even though they’re together.”

He wondered if that might be how they were if they continued to see each other.

“I like that,” Sadie said, craning her neck to look up at the piece.

Her hand brushed his, and he took that as a sign to take it. “Sadie, I’d…”

She angled her body to face him. “Yes?”

She was going to make him ask. “I’d like to kiss you.”

“Go ahead,” she said, her voice the definition of invitation.

When his lips finally settled over hers, her mouth opened slightly, and he felt the world tilt like the sculpture before them. He closed his eyes, awash in the sensation of his mouth moving over hers. There was no sound but their commingled breath, and somehow that drove him wild. When he kissed the side of her mouth and leaned back to look into her eyes, she followed him. He gave her another slow kiss before breaking away again.

“Wow,” he said softly. “You give new meaning to one of my favorite songs, ‘Lips Like Sugar.’ I’m going to want to do that again.”

“I’m going to want you to do that again too,” she confessed.

Oh, her voice…so lush and inviting in the dark night. 

“Glad to know we’re on the same page finally.”

And with that, he kissed her for what seemed like an eternity in the new time they seemed to create together.