Page 43 of Reclaiming Love

Close by, a couple left their table and Noah moved toward it. “Do you want to sit down?”

In answer, she joined him at the table, a glance over her shoulder confirming the heat of what she felt: Heather eyeballed her.

"It’s strange bumping into you here.” He sat down and placed his almost empty beer bottle on the table.

“Strange?”

“As in, good strange.”

She waited for him to say whatever it was that was clearly on the tip of his tongue and hoped that the silence would give him the space to spell out what it was he was having trouble saying to her. "If I was to be completely honest with you”—he looked down at his bottle, before his warm eyes looked up and into hers—“I was kind of hoping we’d bump into one another somewhere different from the coffee shop.”

His words encouraged her. “It makes a change,” she agreed, “to meet someplace different.”

“And I kind of feel like you’re not such a stranger anymore, because we keep bumping into each other all the time.” She loved that he was so upfront, not needing to hide behind anything. She propped her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on hands clasped together. It was as delicious as warm apple pie, falling into his words, falling into him.

“We’ve had lunch together, so that doesn’t make us strangers anymore.” She tried to inject a touch of humor to the situation. He put down his bottle. “I have a confession to make.”

Now her heart tripped. She angled her head, all the while excitement mounted higher inside her. The place they were in disappeared, the noise, the heat, the crowdedness of it all. Her ears strained for his words and she leaned in to hear them better.

“You never did introduce me to your new friend.” Heather’s giggly voice killed the magic moment.

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