Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“It is,” Delaney replied.
Yet, the woman stood there and gazed around as if the place had been made for her. Good. He didn’t want her to feel out of place, but he also wanted her to enjoy the atmosphere and food. Manger was meant to be an experience.
One never got that first time back.
Curtis released his hold on Delaney’s hand only to wag a finger in Lucas’ direction, saying, “Now I know why you asked for the far side table, hmm?”
Delaney passed Lucas a curious look as he slipped in beside her and curled an arm around her waist. “A view and a fire,” he explained.
Not well, he knew.
Her puckered brow said so.
“You’ll see,” Lucas added with a gentle squeeze to her waist.
Delaney shook her head with a smile, and gazed into the main dining room where there were fewer private seating spots and more patrons. They also had better access to watch the movement in the kitchen, and slightly more noise. Usually, he opted for the main seating because he could lose himself in the scrape of utensils against plates, the soft hum of conversation around him, and the laughter traveling out from the kitchen.
Lucas didn’t care to get distracted by others tonight.
Only one person.
Delaney smiled up at him when Lucas pointed out the painting of the Saint John River in aerial view hanging over the mantle in the alcove in a rainbow of hues. In the bottom left corner, Sloane Alcott’s familiar signature blackened the bright colors.
“A friend’s brother made that,” he told her.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I have a few of my own around the apartment.” A collection of a half of a dozen acrylic paintings that Lucas held particularly close. He wasn’t one for art, but there was something to be said for personally knowing an artist. “He said once there was something about the Maritimes … they’re stuck in his head in all those colors.”
“I bet,” she said, taking in the six-foot long piece of art again. “It’s a hell of a way to see it, huh?”
“Nothing but the river is the color it should be, and yet—”
“If you know what it is, you can see it,” Delaney interjected.
Lucas nodded. “Exactly.”
The paintings he owned were focused more on the areas that were most familiar and sentimental to Lucas. He had the sudden urge to commission one of the river, now. Perhaps not one as big, though.
Another time …
“Your table is ready whenever you both would like to head back,” Curtis said after having clicked through the tablet on his podium. “Would you like to check in your coats and everything else?”
“Oh, yes, please,” Delaney said before Lucas could get a word in edgewise.
He was close enough to help her with removing her jacket. The short sweater dress she wore underneath wasn’t body conforming, but it clung to the swell of her hips and backside as she turned to pull her arms from the coat. The coat itself had been too long for him to appreciate just how high her boots went.
Right up to mid-thigh. Only a sliver of smooth, creamy skin peeked out between the top of her boots and the hem of her dress.
Complimenting Delaney seemed inappropriate given their current circumstances. Damn the weather for not giving him the chance to admire her earlier. Besides, they weren’t alone, although they would be soon, and she was more interested in tugging off her mittens, hat, and scarf for Curtis to take than Lucas’ staring.
Lucky for him.
His mouth had gone dry, anyway.
“And your coat, Mr. Dalton?” Curtis asked, the bundle of Delaney’s items waiting where it hung over his arm.
The question brought Lucas back to reality, and the beautiful woman waiting for him with an equally gorgeous smile as she kept a tight grip on the short handle of her black leather purse. He did not think shedding his jacket had the same effect on the room, but who was he to say?
Delaney tucked close to his side once more the very second she could.
All the way to the far table.
*
They had barely sat down at one of the handful of fully private dining tables before Delaney excused herself to the restroom with a complaint about hats and her hair. It didn’t matter how vehemently Lucas tried to assure her she looked perfect, and the hat hadn’t done anything terrible to her waves of black locks, she wanted the proof for herself.
Left alone behind the wall of water falling between panes of fiberglass from the ceiling, he sat at the table situated between the window overlooking a snow-covered town and the fireplace crackling on the screen at his back.
“Are you thinking about the typical?” Curtis asked as he returned to the table with a water pitcher in one hand and a silver serving tray with glasses in another.
“I’ll wait for her, and go from there,” Lucas replied.