Page 141 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

“Jester told you where I’d be?” I ask.

Now the barista jumps in. “He’s been waiting to do that for three days.” She calls out over her shoulder, “He finally got her, y’all!”

The other employees let out a cheer.

I turn back to him. “You planned this?”

His hand drips onto the floor. “I figured all those meet-cutes can’t be wrong.”

“So you did them all at once?”

“I didn’t switch our luggage.” He glances around. “No elevator.”

“He tried to convince us to get in an argument with him, but we weren’t Oscar contenders,” the barista says. “We’ve been dealing with him since Sunday. Are you going to get him out of our hair? He already signed his autograph on everything we own.”

I watch Zachery as I say, “I don’t know. I’m not sure why he’s here.”

“For you, double-oh-seven with almond milk.” She shakes her head. “He made us change our featured drink.”

This makes me laugh. “You went to a lot of trouble.”

He doesn’t meet my gaze, busy wiping his hand over and over.

“Hey,” I say. “Since when is Zachery Montgomery Carter anything short of a charmer, tamer of women, slayer of hearts?”

He finally looks up, his expression pained. “Since I wasn’t there when you needed me. Since I left you with that tree farmer. Since you got fired and I didn’t even know it until it was long over.”

The rapt audience lets out a long “Oooo.”

Heads swivel to me for my response.

“Are you here to apologize? To say goodbye?”

They all look back to Zachery.

“No. I don’t want to say goodbye.”

He doesn’t? Something can be salvaged after all? A gentle glow starts to warm my belly. “I had to leave LA. There was nothing left for me there.”

The crowd shifts, on the edge of their seats.

“I’m there. But I don’t have to be there. I can be anywhere.” He swallows again, and this time, I see that spark of the Zachery I know. He’s waited three days to say these things to me.

“Anywhere?” I ask. “I’m headed to a dairy farm in Alabama.”

He steps closer. “Then maybe I want to be on a dairy farm in Alabama, too.”

The room murmurs and sighs.

“But what about your red-carpet women? And the others? Livia. Catalina. The ones Desdemona will set you up with?”

He nods, his brows furrowed. “I know it looked like I was with those two. But I wasn’t. Not once, not anyone, not since you. I don’t want anyone else but you. And I quit Desdemona. I don’t work for her, either.”

“You did?”

“That office is pointless without you. LA is nothing.” He glances around. “Does this count as a small town?”

“We got twenty Starbucks,” someone calls.

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