Page 30 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

Maybe even commiserating, which wasn’t supposed to be part of the fantasy—but why not?

“So Grandma, knowing that, asked if I would come live with her as a sort of caretaker. I could work at her restaurant as a busboy or dishwasher and take care of her. Make sure she was taking care of herself. I couldn’t imagine leaving St. Louis, I don’t know why, so I took her up on it.

“She had this little garden back here for herbs and a few vegetables in the summer. She told me to take it over and do whatever I wanted. Year by year, it just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Farmers’ markets started to make a comeback, and I slowly started taking fewer and fewer shifts at the restaurant, and more and more farmers’ market booths.”

He’d gone from sad and wistful to something closer to happy, or maybe satisfied and proud.

“My next-door neighbor’s grandson was about my age, and he worked at the charter school. We came up with an idea for a summer program. It was a slow process, but once I realized I could do all the things I’d done on the farm on this tiny patch of land, I never looked back. This was what I was going to build and keep.”

It was quite the story, really, but something about the wordrestaurantstuck there, digging into her brain the way things always did when she had a business idea. There was something there. Fuzzy at first, but it would snowball.

“Did you ever supply your grandmother’s restaurant with food?” She studied her wine instead of him, because she wanted her thoughts to move organically. She didn’t want to be thinking thisforhim.

“When it was feasible. They had a very set menu they didn’t want to change, so they couldn’t fool around with what was in season. But when it worked out that I had what they needed, I’d sell it to them, until Grandma sold the restaurant.”

That was it. That was what they needed. Not to pave over this beautiful place, but to do something with it. Something connected to Gallagher’s.

She opened her mouth to tell him, but then she stopped. No, she had to work out some possibilities and some details first. Talk to Kayla. Talk to the food manager. Make sure this snowballing idea would work, would be as perfect as she thought it could be.

“It must be very rewarding to have built this yourself,” she forced herself to say, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.

Carter shrugged. “I’m not going to lie—it’s nice, but I would have preferred to keep Dad’s farm. Still, it’s not terrible to see how this place has grown because of me.”

“There’s something to be said for having done it on your own,” she said as she watched him take in the entire backyard, his smile growing. “Being able to make all your own choices, put your own mark on it. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it’s not half bad.”

“I envy you a little bit. It’s hard to make a difference in something that already exists. Settled so tight into history and family, it’s hard to make a ripple.”

“I’m sure you put an indelible mark on Gallagher’s, Dinah. And just about everything else you touch.”

It didn’t escape her notice he mentioned both Gallagher’s and her actual name without backtracking or stopping himself. She thought about asking him if he’d noticed, but she decided to keep that to herself too.

If she could turn this little idea into a big idea, and if she could get everyone to agree . . . it would be possible for them to be Carter and Dinah instead of C and D.

She pressed a hand to her stomach where nerves were jangling ridiculously. Was that what she really wanted? To try to make a fantasy a reality?

She didn’t have a great answer for that. She slid a glance at him, all shadows and dark hair in the evening light. He was so handsome and she thought they understood each other really, really well.

She was getting so far ahead of herself it wasn’t even funny. She’d gotten better at recognizing when she was diving headfirst into a possibly shallow pool, and though she still didn’t always figure out how to rein it all in, she’d figured out how to keep some of it to herself.

She would keep this to herself until she was sure she could make it happen, and until she was sure shewantedit to happen.

But then he glanced over at her and smiled, putting the beer can aside. When he slid out of his chair and turned to face her with a delicious, predatory gleam in his eye, she figured tonight she could set those thoughts aside and focus on the here and now.

Fantasy. C and D and the chemistry they had. Tomorrow, during work hours, she would figure out what exactly she could do.

“Did you eat tonight?”

“I did. But I didn’t have dessert,” she returned with a saucy grin.

He chuckled, kneeling at her feet. His big, strong, rugged hands rested on her knees and he drew his thumbs back and forth across the top. She reached out and combed her fingers through his curly, unruly hair.

Her chest ached and felt all expanded. It almost hurt, even as the shiver of excitement and something else worked its way through her body.

The very bottom line was, she’d never really felt like this with a guy. Being with a guy required letting your guard down a certain amount, and Dinah had been very bad at that part. But it came so easily with Carter. It was like her guard wasn’t just down, it had never existed. She supposed that stemmed from how they’d “met.”

“Carter,” she murmured.

---