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  “I’ll consider it lucky if my feet will take me home again.”

  “If they won’t—” he lifted her hand, touched his lips to the back of it “—I will.”

  She smiled at the twenty-two-year-old. “You better be careful, Marco, or one of these days, I just might take you up on that offer.”

  “I keep hoping.”

  Rachel knew him too well to take him seriously, but she couldn’t deny that his casual flirtation was a nice boost to her ego.

  “I should be out of here by ten,” he said now. “We could go back to my place and—”

  “Stop flirting with my friend,” Gemma, back from the kitchen, chastised her brother-in-law.

  His gaze didn’t shift away from Rachel. “Why?”

  “Because she’ll break your heart.”

  “She does every single time I see her.”

  Gemma shook her head at him and said to Rachel, “I’ve got some counter space for you in the kitchen.”

  “It would be easier if you just let me take it home.”

  “It will taste better if you’re among friends,” Gemma insisted.

  Rachel took the second glass of wine Marco poured for her and followed the hostess to the kitchen.

  A stool was waiting at the end of a stainless steel workstation that was covered with a linen cloth and set up to replicate the tables in the dining room, complete with a lit candle inside a hurricane shade.

  “Okay, this is better than eating out of a take-out container,” Rachel admitted.

  “Of course it is,” Gemma agreed, as the pantry chef set a plate of salad and a small basket of artisan breads in front of Rachel. “I need to check on the dining room, but I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  As the kitchen staff continued with their rhythms and routines, Rachel dug into her salad. She was about halfway through the appetizer when Gemma returned to the kitchen.

  “We can squeeze another chair in here,” she was saying. “I’m sure Rachel would enjoy having some company.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but—”

  “Then you won’t insult me by turning it down,” Gemma said.

  The male voice sounded somewhat familiar, but Rachel couldn’t place it—until she lowered her fork and looked up, into Andrew Garrett’s green eyes.

  * * *

  Andrew appreciated that Gemma had the best of intentions and a good heart, but he really just wanted to take some pasta home and be alone. Or so he thought until he saw the pretty brunette from the flower shop seated at a makeshift table in the kitchen.

  When she glanced up, the widening of her deep blue eyes reflected a surprise that mirrored his own. “Oh, um, hi.”

  He smiled. “Hi, yourself.”

  The hostess’s gaze shifted from one to the other. “You know each other?”

  “Sort of,” he said.

  At the same time the florist responded, “Not really.”

  “Well, that clears everything up,” Gemma said drily.

  “Mr. Garrett’s been in to Buds & Blooms a few times,” she explained.

  “Andrew,” he told her, and, realizing that they’d never been formally introduced, offered his hand.

  “Rachel Ellis,” she replied.

  “Why are you eating in the kitchen?” he asked her.

  “Because no one wants to be alone on Valentine’s Day,” the hostess answered.

  Rachel’s cheeks flushed. “Because Gemma refused to let me take my food home.”

  “There seems to be a lot of that going around,” Andrew noted.

  “We have a couple paying their bill and no one waiting for their table, if you wanted to move into the dining room,” Gemma suggested.

  Rachel shook her head, immediately and vehemently. “I’m good here.”

  His instinctive response was the same. If they dined together in the kitchen, they could share pasta and casual conversation. But if they ate in the dining room, with soft lighting and romantic music, it would take on a whole different ambience—almost like a date.

  “Looks like a pretty good setup,” he said to Rachel. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  The words were barely out of her mouth before a waiter was at the table, setting another place. One of the chefs immediately put a salad on the table for him.

  “I almost think there’s better service here than in the dining room,” he teased Gemma.

  “Now I’m thinking that I should put your pasta in a take-out container and send you home,” she countered.

  He was tempted to say “please,” but given a choice between sharing a meal with the florist and eating alone, he had to go with the florist.

  “The truth is,” he said instead, “the culinary genius of the chef is second only to the beauty of the restaurant’s hostess.”

  Gemma laughed. “Flattery will get you anywhere you want to go in my restaurant, but now I must go back to work.”

  When she’d exited the kitchen, Andrew picked up his fork and stabbed a piece of lettuce. He and Rachel ate in silence for a few minutes, and though his dinner companion said nothing, he could imagine the questions that were running through her mind.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, when he’d finished his appetizer.

  She sipped her wine. “By the salad?”

  “By your restraint.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It’s not any of my business.”

  “But you’re wondering why I’m not having dinner with the woman I bought the flowers for,” he guessed.

  “The thought did cross my mind.”

  “The flowers were for my wife,” he told her. “But she died three years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “How long were you married?”

  “Five years.”

  One of the kitchen assistants cleared away their salad plates and another immediately set bowls of steaming pasta on the table. He looked from his to hers, noticed they were the same.

  Rachel speared a chunk of spicy sausage with her fork, popped it into her mouth.

  “What about you?” he asked. “Why are you alone tonight?”

  “I’m on a dating hiatus,” she admitted.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I made a lot of bad choices with respect to relationships, so I decided to take a break from men.”

  “How long have you been on this break?” he wondered.

  “Sixteen months.”

  “You haven’t been on a date in more than a year?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But even when I was dating, I never liked dating on Valentine’s Day.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s too much pressure to make a simple date into something more on February 14, too many expectations on both parties.” She nibbled on her penne. “Did you know that ten percent of all marriage proposals take place on Valentine’s Day?”

  He shook his head.

  “It makes me wonder—is the popularity of proposals on that day a result of romance in the air or a consequence of the pressure to celebrate in a big way?”

  “The Valentine’s Day chicken and egg,” he mused.

  She nodded. “And then there are the Valentine’s Day weddings, which seem to me the lazy man’s way of ensuring he’ll remember his anniversary.”

  Andrew waited a beat before he said, “Nina and I were married on Valentine’s Day.”

  Chapter Two

  Rachel pushed her plate aside as her cheeks filled with color. “I don’t think I can finish this with my foot in my mouth.”

  Andrew smiled and nudged her plate back to her. “We were actually married the twenty-second of November.”

  “Since I tend
to speak without thinking, I’ll forgive you for that,” she said, picking up her fork again.

  Gemma bustled into the kitchen, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed with excitement. “Look at this,” she said, holding her hand out to show off the princess-cut diamond solitaire on the tip of her finger. “Isn’t it stunning?”

  “It’s beautiful,” Rachel agreed. “But you’re already married.”

  The hostess rolled her eyes. “It’s not for me, obviously. One of our customers is going to propose to his girlfriend, right here, tonight.

  “He told me the story when he called to make the reservation. They met on a blind date in our dining room, and he said the minute he first saw her, he knew she was the one. Now, eight months later, he’s ready to ask her to share his life.”

  “So why do you have the ring?” Rachel wondered.

  “Oh. Right.” She turned to call out to the pastry chef. “Edouard—I need a tiramisu.” Then she continued her explanation: “That’s what she had for dessert that first night.”

  “You’re not going to bury the ring in the cake, are you?” Andrew asked.

  “No, I’m going to put it on top,” Gemma explained. “The dark chocolate will really make the gold shine and the diamond sparkle.”

  “And the band sticky so she can’t get it off her finger if she changes her mind,” Rachel mused.

  He grinned; the hostess scowled.

  “You don’t appreciate romance,” she scolded Rachel.

  “I do appreciate romance,” his dinner companion insisted. “I’ve even done bouquets with engagement rings tied to the ribbon. But I think that words spoken from the heart make a more memorable proposal than the staged presentation of a ring.”

  “What about a ‘will you marry me?’ spelled out on the big screen at a sporting event?” Andrew asked.

  Rachel opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut again and eyed him warily. “Is that how you proposed?”

  He chuckled. “No.”

  “Should we make a wager on what her response will be?” Andrew asked, as Gemma left the kitchen with the dessert.

  Rachel shook her head. “I might not be a fan of public proposals, but I hope she accepts. He obviously put a lot of thought into his plans tonight, bringing her back to the restaurant where they first met, remembering the dessert she had on that first date.

  “And I don’t think he’d pop the question in this kind of venue if he wasn’t sure of the answer,” she noted, before asking him, “How did you propose?”

  “Oh.” He pushed his now-empty bowl aside. “It wasn’t very well planned out at all.”

  Her lips curved, making him suspect that the tips of his ears had gone red as they sometimes did when he was embarrassed.

  “Impulsive...and in bed,” she guessed.

  Since he couldn’t deny it, he only said, “She said yes.”

  Her smile widened, and he couldn’t help noticing the way it lit up her whole face. She was an attractive woman—he could acknowledge that fact without being attracted to her. But looking at her now, he felt the stirring of something low in his belly that he suspected might be attraction.

  “Did you at least have a ring?” Rachel asked, as she dipped her fork into the slice of chocolate-raspberry cake that had been set in front of her.

  “No. We went to get one the next day.” He realized, as he shared the details with Rachel, that it no longer hurt so much to remember the special moments he and Nina had spent together. He’d grieved for his wife for a long time after her quick and unexpected death, but he’d finally accepted that she was gone—that it was time to move on with his life without her.

  “I hate being alone on Valentine’s Day,” Rachel admitted. “But it must be even harder for you—to have found the one person you expected to share your life with, and then lose her.”

  He shrugged. “Being alone on Valentine’s Day isn’t really any different from the other three hundred and sixty-four days of the year.”

  She considered this as she took another sip of her wine, then shook her head. “Logically, I know that’s true. And I’m generally satisfied with my own company. But somehow, on February 14, being single is suddenly spelled A-L-O-N-E, all in capital letters.

  “I blame the greeting card companies,” she continued. “And the jewelers and chocolate shops—”

  “And the florists,” he interjected dryly.

  She smiled again. “I’m well aware of the hypocrisy. I’m also grateful that the shop keeps me busy so I don’t have a lot of time to think about it. But when I lock the door behind the last customer, there’s a strange sense of emptiness.” She shook her head, as if to shake off the negative thought. “And I just filled that emptiness with too much pasta and bread.”

  “So let’s do something,” Andrew suggested impulsively.

  She blinked. “What?”

  “That was the advice my mother always gave me,” he told her. “Don’t stew, do.”

  “Sounds like good advice.”

  “Are you up for it?” he challenged.

  She eyed him with a combination of curiosity and wariness. “I guess that depends on what ‘it’ is.”

  He just smiled and called for the check.

  * * *

  Rachel wasn’t in the habit of getting into a car with a man she barely knew, especially not heading off to a destination unknown. But Andrew insisted that he wanted to surprise her, and she figured she was safe with him because Gemma and Tony knew him and they knew she was leaving the restaurant with him.

  A development that had Gemma’s brows rising in silent question when she told her of the plan. Rachel had answered with a shake of her head, warning her friend not to make a big deal out of something that wasn’t. She only hoped that she could follow the same advice.

  But as he drove toward Ridgemount, she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Andrew Garrett—aka Sexy White Roses Guy—was no longer married. And while she understood that his legal status had changed, the fact that he continued to wear his wedding band on his finger confirmed he was still emotionally unavailable.

  And that was okay, because she wasn’t looking for a relationship. She had no intention of ending her sixteen-month dating hiatus simply because she was in the company of a really hot guy who made her heart pound and her blood hum.

  Because somewhere along the line—no doubt when her heart was still bruised over her breakup with Eric—she’d developed a bit of a crush on Andrew Garrett. Her feelings had been fueled, at least in part, by his obvious love for and commitment to his wife. Every time he’d come into the shop, she’d looked at him as proof that there really were good guys in the world. And because she’d believed he was married, she’d been confident that the attraction she felt would never be anything more than an innocent infatuation.

  Now that she knew he was widowed, she was afraid that crush might develop into something more. She wasn’t looking for anything more, and yet she’d accepted his cryptic challenge. After a brief tussle over the bill—which Gemma settled by refusing to take money from either one of them—she’d chosen to spend time with him rather than go home alone. And after a ten-hour day that left her mentally and physically exhausted, she was a little worried about what that meant.

  “Here we are,” he said.

  Rachel stared at the blinking neon that spelled out Ridgemount Lanes with two crossed pins and a ball between the words.

  Apparently “it” was bowling.

  He pulled into a parking space and unfastened his seat belt. She didn’t move.

  “I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she told him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t remember the last time I was bowling.” She considered for a minute, her brow furrowed. “Actually, I think it might have been way back in
high school.”

  “How far back is ‘way back’?”

  “I graduated ten years ago.”

  “Which means that you’re about...twenty-eight?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “And you’re sneaky.”

  “Am I right?”

  “I’ll be twenty-eight at the end of July,” she admitted. “How long ago did you graduate high school?”

  His smile was wry. “Before you started.”

  “Another reason we should reconsider this,” Rachel told him. “The physical activity might be too strenuous for a man of such advanced age.”

  “I can handle it if you can,” he assured her.

  She unfastened her belt.

  Before she could reach for the handle of her door, he was there, opening it for her. She followed him through sliding glass panels that parted automatically in response to their approach and was immediately assaulted by unfamiliar noises and scents. The thunk of heavy balls dropping onto wood; the crash of pins knocking against each other and toppling over, punctuated by an occasional whoop or muttered curse; the smell of lemon polish and French fry grease with a hint of stale sweat.

  There were thirty-two lanes, and Rachel was surprised to note that almost half of them were occupied. There were several teams in coordinated shirts that identified them as part of a league, a few groups of teens and several older couples. But the bigger surprise was the discovery of Valentine’s decorations hanging from the ceiling: cutouts of cupids’ silhouettes and foil hearts, and bouquets of helium-filled heart-shaped balloons at every scoring console.

  “So much for forgetting it’s February 14,” Rachel noted, as she followed Andrew to the counter.

  His only response was to ask, “Shoe size?”

  “Eight.”

  The man behind the counter—whose name tag identified him as Grover—had three days’ growth of beard, red-rimmed eyes and wore a T-shirt that barely stretched to cover his protruding belly with the inscription: Real Bowlers Play With Their Own Balls. The image effectively killed any romantic ambience and made Rachel feel a lot better about this outing.

  “Welcome to Ridgemount Lanes,” he said, his voice showcasing slightly more enthusiasm than his tired expression.