Count on Me (Petal, Georgia) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the walls can’t talk.”
    Considering the life Marc Chase had lived before he’d ended up with his wife, probably not. Unless Caroline liked dirty-talking walls.
    She looked back at him as she hung her coat up. “You can drop those files on the table. Where are we going to dinner?”
    “Huh?” He’d been staring at her ass and only caught a word or two.
    “Dinner? Jeans okay or do I need to dress up?”
    He panicked for a moment. He’d planned on the Pumphouse. They had a great menu and plenty of beers on tap, but should he take her somewhere nicer?
    “That wasn’t a trick question, Royal.”
    “Go on, laugh at my confusion.”
    “I would if I knew what you were confused about. How about this? I would very much like to relax. A pitcher of beer, a burger, tacos, pizza, you know, casual stuff.”
    “Sounds perfect. The Pumphouse then. So jeans are just fine.”
    “I’ll be out in a few.”
    He cruised around her apartment, looking at the pictures on the walls. He paused at the wedding photograph. Her mother and father so very young. Hell, younger than he was right then.
    Love was stamped all over them. He knew at that moment, without a single doubt, that Caroline saw them just like this. Her memories of her parents were of these two people. And he understood it. These two people could not have ended the way they had with Bianca Mendoza’s broken body in her husband’s arms. Not with Enrique as the man who killed her.
    Royal didn’t know the truth of it, but he knew what she saw, what Caroline believed.
    “They were eighteen. She was pregnant with me but you can’t even tell.”
    She’d come out and he hadn’t even heard.
    “You ready?”
    He turned and the breath was knocked from his lungs at the sight of her. “Good Lord above you’re beautiful.”
    She smiled and there was shyness in it. He hadn’t seen even a hint of shyness about her, and it sent a wave of tenderness through his gut.
    He tipped his head toward the picture of her parents. “I recognize the church. My parents were married there too. She was pregnant as well.” He winked and Caroline swallowed hard and the smile she gave him this time was different. Not flirty or sweet, there was…gratitude maybe? He wasn’t sure what it was, but for a brief moment she was vulnerable.
    It was gone after a breath or two, though, replaced with her take-charge expression. “Come on then. I’m really hungry, and one of my clients was such a pain in the ass this week I need at least two beers.”
    He took her hand once they’d reached the sidewalk, and the shock of it sang up his arm. She fit there with him, her hand in his.
    She didn’t attempt to pull away as she adjusted her pace to his.
    The Pumphouse wasn’t at full capacity just yet, so they grabbed a small booth near the front windows. He wanted to slide in next to her but he refrained. Across from her he could look his fill, that’d be fine too. The next time, or maybe the time after, he’d claim that space next to her in a booth.
    “Beer me.” She winked and he liked it.
    He ordered a pitcher of a local brew they’d started serving recently.
    “I’ve never eaten in here. What’s good?”
    “You haven’t? It’s not like you never came back to town, right? I know you visited a few times a year.”
    “Do you now? Have you been keeping tabs on me?”
    He started to explain and noted her smirk.
    “Lord amighty, woman, I thought you were serious for a minute there.”
    Caroline snickered as she looked over the menu. “You’ve met my grandparents, right? Do they strike you as the type to eat in a place like this? My grandmother might keel over at the mere sight of paper napkins, Royal. She’s not eating nachos and having three-buck pitchers.” She burst out laughing. “Though, oh my God, I’d love to see the look on her face if she did.”
    “Well, her loss then. The burgers are good. Nachos too. Wings. Bar and grill food.”
    She put her menu down when their server brought