Chapter 4
Deirdre stared at Wyatt, who stared right back. “I’m not going out with one of the delivery guys,” she said evenly. “A lot of them are women.”
Wyatt leaned back in his chair and continued to watch her. Deirdre could see the intelligence in his eyes, and it actually made her as uncomfortable as it appealed to her.
“Okay,” she said. “I am going to be late for work.” She knocked a couple of times on his desk. “Good talk.”
Deirdre couldn’t believe she’d waited in his office for twenty minutes to ask him out, only to have him suggest she order in and ask the delivery driver out.
Humiliation filled her, and she thought about driving around the island to the north shore so Emma would report her for breaking the restraining order. Then she’d get arrested, and then Wyatt would have to pay attention to her.
Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself as she approached Norma’s desk. The woman had eyes like a hawk, and she’d hooked into Deirdre the moment she’d left Wyatt’s office. “Oh, dear,” she said. “He said no, didn’t he?”
“Kind of?” Deirdre guessed. “It’s fine, Norma. Thanks for letting me wait in his office.” She’d been tempted to look through the files on his desk or jiggle his mouse to wake up his computer. She’d minded her manners, though, and she hadn’t touched anything.
His face had lit up when he’d first seen her, but she’d underestimated the level of his hurt from her rejection a couple of nights ago. But she thought maybe if she showed up and asked him out, he’d forgive her.
She didn’t know Wyatt Gardner as well as she thought, obviously. She walked through the maze of hallways that led to the parking lot, the sun already heating the day past comfortable. Deirdre didn’t care. Your Tidal Forever had great air conditioning, and once she got to the office, she’d be fine.
She needed to call Jungle Plants the moment she got in, and then she’d need to powwow with Charlotte, Lisa, and Hope to figure out what to do about the vines they wouldn’t have for the wedding that weekend.
She’d just reached her car when she heard someone call her name. Wyatt. Deirdre pressed her eyes closed before turning back to him. He walked toward her, his tall frame and wide shoulders calling to everything female inside her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Is the dinner invitation still open?”
“Yes.”
“I’d love to go to dinner with you.”
“I can cook at my place.”
“Sounds nice.”
“Six?”
“I’ll be there.”
Deirdre nodded, determined not to tuck her hair behind her ear until the handsome Chief of Police walked away from her. He fell back a step but didn’t turn around. Then another, a smile spreading across his face.
“Same house over on Parrot Street?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He saluted her and finally turned around. Deirdre tucked her blonde hair behind her ear and sighed, suddenly not caring about the heat. She didn’t want to play games with Wyatt, and it seemed like he didn’t either.
She got behind the wheel of her car and turned the key in the ignition. The air conditioning blew, and she breathed in the cold air, finally allowing herself to smile. She’d gotten a date with the Chief of Police.
“You did it,” she whispered to herself as she pulled out of the parking space and aimed her car toward Your Tidal Forever. When she got to work, she went into her office and put her purse in the closet right behind the door. Before she sat down and got to work, she left the office and went to the one immediately next door.
“Meg,” she said, excitement building inside her. “You’ll never guess what I did this morning.”
Her friend looked up from her tablet, where she had a couple of sketches open for dresses.
“Oh, are those the bridesmaids dresses for the Carrolle wedding?”
“Yes.” Meg turned the tablet so Deirdre could see it. “Aren’t they great? Ash sent them over, but she thinks there’s something missing.”
Deirdre put Wyatt in the back of her mind for a moment. In another life, on the other side of the island, she’d known how to sew. In fact, in the early day of her marriage, she’d worked as a seamstress to bring in more money.
“I agree,” she said slowly. “Has she thought about putting a bow in the back? That’s coming back into trend these days. Huge bow, in a contrasting color.”
Meg cocked her head at the tablet. “I’ll text her.” She swiped away from the sketches and opened her email. “What’s going on with you this morning?”
“I got a date.”
Meg abandoned the tablet completely. “Shut the front door. Tell me what happened.”
“You were right about me running into Wyatt on Friday,” she said. “And he asked me out, but I said no.”
“You said no?” Meg shook her head. “Sometimes I really don’t understand you.”
Deirdre barely understood herself, and she was thirty-nine years old. “Anyway,” she said pointedly. “I stopped by the police station this morning on my way in, and I asked him out.”
Deirdre didn’t need to go into how he’d said no at first, though him chasing her down in the parking lot was kind of romantic.
But Deirdre knew a relationship needed more than romance to work, and she’d often thought she didn’t have all that many romantic bones in her body anyway.
“And he’s coming over tonight for dinner.”
“You’re cooking?” Meg’s eyebrows shot sky high. “Wow, that’s brave.”
“Why is that brave?” Deirdre sat down and crossed her legs.
Meg glanced toward the door, and Deirdre remembered she’d come in late already. She didn’t want to upset Hope, but she also really wanted to get her head in the right place when it came to Wyatt. She could easily say she was talking to Meg about the vines.
“Before you say,” she said. “Remind me that we need to talk about the vines for the wedding this weekend.”
“Okay—what? The vines?”
“After,” Deirdre said. “Why is it brave of me to have him to my place for dinner?”
“Because,” Meg said matter-of-factly. “Then he’s there, in your space. And you can’t just be like, I have to get up early. Let’s go. Thanks for dinner, like you can at a restaurant. What if he won’t leave?”
“He has to get up early for work too,” Deirdre said.
“Your funeral,” Meg said, but Deirdre thought if she could taste her coconut shrimp and seafood risotto, Meg would change her tune. “Now, what’s going on with the vines?”
Before Deirdre could tell her, her speakerphone beeped. “Meg,” Sunny said. “Your nine o’clock is here.” She sounded chipper and happy to be in on Monday morning, the same as always. “And she brought her mother,” she added in a whisper. “Shall I send them back?”
“I’ll come out to get them,” Meg said. “Thanks, Sunny.” She got up from behind her desk.
“Is this the La Costa wedding?”
“Yes.” Meg sighed. “And let me tell you, just because they’re Hawaiian royalty does not mean they know how to make a decision.”
“Hawaiian royalty?”
“Oh, totally.” Meg nodded as her heels clicked against the floor. “The mother is like the queen or priestess or whatever of their tribe. She scares me a little.” She flashed Deirdre a smile and then turned back to her fully. “Oh, and I’m expecting a call tonight after your little dinner. Unless, of course, it’s past ten. Then don’t call. I need my beauty rest.” With that, Meg was gone, leaving Deirdre to figure out why having Wyatt over for dinner would be like her funeral.
She hurried out of the office and into her own, because she didn’t need to be there when the Hawaiian royalty showed up.
She couldn’t solve the vine problem, even with Hope and Charlotte on her side, and she made a difficult phone call to the bride to explain the vines. In the end, they decided to go with false ones, and Deirdre spent the afternoon at the local craft store trying to find the right thing.
Six o’clock approached as she zipped into the grocery store to buy a few key ingredients for dinner, including the coconut and the shrimp. She barely arrived home before six, but she didn’t see Wyatt’s police cruiser in her driveway. The tropical palm trees bordered both sides of the dirt road that led up to her house, and she felt secluded from the rest of the island, though she was only sixty seconds up Parrot Road and into the rain forest on the island.
She loved the sound of birds calling to each other in the trees, and the hint of wind she got off the ocean, only a couple of blocks away.
She set about starting the seafood risotto, because it would take the longest. Frying shrimp took only a few minutes, and Deirdre knew Wyatt loved seafood.
Mixing and measuring, Deirdre got the risotto going. As it bubbled away, she washed the shrimp and made the quick coconut breading. With a pan of oil heating next to her heavy saucepan where the risotto now needed more water, Deirdre returned her attention to the risotto.
So absorbed in the food prep as she as, Deirdre didn’t even realize what time it was until the risotto was plump and almost finished. Which meant thirty minutes had passed.
And Wyatt hadn’t shown up yet.
Alarm pulled through Deirdre, and she actually turned and looked at the front door. He’d knock any moment now… Any moment…