Page 81 of First Love, Second Draft

Grace:51 is not elderly!

Rachel:So we are talking about Luke. I knew it!

Grace:We’re talking about my heroine!

Rachel:Fine. But I thought we already agreed your heroine needs to end up with the real hero at the end.

Grace:What if the real hero broke her heart in the past? What if he wasn’t there when she needed him? What if she didn’t like the bitter, angry person she was turning into, so she pushed him away because she didn’t know how else to get rid of her pain? What if the farmer is the only safe bet she has for never getting her heart shattered again?

Rachel:What if she’s never stopped loving the real hero? What if he’s worth risking her heart for again? What if the farmer deserves someone who will love him as much as the heroine loves her real hero?

Grace:What if the heroine’s just not brave enough?

Rachel:Then I guess I only have one thing left to say. I completely understand.

46

Hey Rachel

Matt deleted his text.

Rachel, hey

Deleted it again.

Hey

Hi

Ho

“I thought you were getting the bananas.” Mona dropped two boxes of cereal and a loaf of bread into his shopping cart.

“Huh? Oh. Bananas. Yeah. I was just about to grab them.” Matt clicked his phone off and slid it into his back jeans pocket. “What?” he said when his mom continued to stare at him.

“Nothing. Just wondering if you’re feeling okay. You haven’t moved from this spot since we stepped inside the grocery store. Head feeling okay? You’re not dizzy or anything?”

“I’m fine. Just... thinking about bananas.” He started pushing the shopping cart toward the produce section.

Mona grabbed the cart and stopped him. “You still remember what they look like, right?” She lowered her voice. “Honey, do you know who I am?”

“You’re the loudmouthed Realtor who sold me my house.”

“Just checking.” She punched his shoulder, then immediatelystarted petting the flannel material of his shirt. “That’s not your bad shoulder, is it?”

“Well, it certainly is now.” Matt rotated it with a dramatic groan.

“Oh, stop being a baby.” She winked and pointed to a stand full of apples. “Grab some of those on your way to the bananas. I told Gracie I’d bake her a pie. Noah made one the other week and I guess it turned out terrible. I’m going to run over and grab a gallon of milk. Meet you at the checkout aisle in a few minutes.”

“Got it.” Matt made his way to the apples, picked out some shiny ones since he wasn’t sure what sort of apples worked best in a pie. Then made his way to the bananas. He was just reaching for a bunch that was green when he heard her voice.

“Green bananas. You must really be on the mend then.”

Matt’s gaze whipped up. Rachel stood on the other side of the banana stand with all the organic produce. They hadn’t spoken for days. Not since his accident. He cleared his throat, but for some reason he still couldn’t seem to make it past thehey, hi, ho.

Mostly because he didn’t want to press her. These past couple days he’d wanted to give her space. And yeah, take a little time to recover from that whole minor concussion thing. But mostly give her space. Make sure she was on board with taking her “I’ve fallen in love with you” to the next level. Maybe even thenextnext level.

He actually didn’t know how many levels there were, at least in Rachel’s mind. But he knew in his mind he was ready for the “I’ll love you forever, through sickness and health, for richer or poorer” level. Which could freak a girl out if she was still on the “I guess we can start calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend and say we’re in an exclusive relationship, but let’s not rush things too fast and just sort of see how things go so that we hopefully don’t turn into crabgrass” level.

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