Page 16 of Those Who Are Bound

“You know it?” He sounded both impressed and shocked.

“I’ve seen it, but I’ve never been inside,” she admitted. “My brother liked to go to Parkville. He liked the coal trains. He liked the river. So we would go to the coffee shop and hang out there occasionally. Your shop is on the corner.”

Jonah nodded. “It is.”

“You’re from Parkville?”

“My shop is there. I have an apartment in the River Market, but I’m originally from Oregon.”

She nodded and held up a finger. “Ah! The accent!”

“I wasn’t aware I had an accent.”

“You haven’t noticed you don’t have the Midwestern drawl?”

He gave a half-shrug. “I suppose not. You don’t have one, either.”

“Military brat; my accent is a mixture of locales but we never made it to the Northwest.” She frowned. “So, you got your outdoorsman nature from growing up in Oregon?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is Lucy from Oregon, too?”

“Yes, until she was eight. Her folks moved here first. Mine followed when I was a teenager, but I already had the bug, and I would spend summers with friends or relatives there. Then I went back for college. I still go regularly. I have a second store out there.”

Elliott stared at his profile, his perfectly shaved and chiseled cheeks; his eyes behind the aviators as he scanned the light pre-rush hour traffic. “Have you considered going back?”

Jonah nodded. “More than once, and recently, in fact, despite other responsibilities here. But then, sometimes, something happens and you realize you need to pay attention to what’s in front of you; take a risk.”

Intrigued, Elliott asked, “What would that be?”

He glanced at her over the top of his aviators, making eye contact and answered pointedly, “I wonder, Elliott Rork.” He looked at her for a beat, and then returned his attention to the road.

Elliott’s jaw dropped a bit. He wasn’t seriously suggesting that, after ten minutes with her in the car, he was making life decisions on whether he would return to Oregon. Giving her head a small shake, she assured herself that he must be pulling her leg, and she faced forward, drinking from her cup. He’d only just met her.

Besides, he said he had other responsibilities.

“Where did you go to college?” he asked. “We’re going to do the whole ‘what’s your favorite color, ice cream, etcetera’ thing. Rock or country? I already know you don’t like mornings, coffee excites you more than the average person, and you can kick my ass. Keep going.”

She let out a soft laugh. “I went to university in DC; one of the private ones. I’ll let you guess.”

He let out a low whistle. “Fancy education.”

“I was a nerd. Majored in business. I’m not sure I have a favorite color, but I don’t like purple; I like lavender ice cream—and I know, lavender is purple. Rock; if you turn on a country station, I am walking.”

“DC to KC.”

“Kansas City is where my parents met, and they came back. Then Gage came here after he left the military.”

He finished for her. “And you came back to be with them after you graduated?”

“Yes and no. My parents died while I was at college. After I graduated, I came back to be near Gage.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. But Gage had the event space, and I’m trying to keep it going. He worked so hard building it. I came here on breaks to play with the heavy equipment and hang out with him. We’d been living in Georgia when I was accepted into university, so KC was a distant memory to me. I was born here, though. We lived here until I was about three, maybe?”

She was straining to keep cheerfulness in her voice; she didn’t want to talk about the losses in her life. He was a stranger, and loss was personal. With one glance, he was able to discern her uneasiness, and he let it go, for which she was grateful. And surprised by his intuitiveness.

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