5
“Okay,” Olli said, ready to get down to business. The drive to Six Stars had been amazing, and Olli wondered what about Spur had scared her in the past. He was nothing but pure Southern gentleman and extreme good looks. Maybe that was exactly what had intimidated her.
“Okay,” he said back, and she realized she’d fallen into staring into those dark, dreamy eyes and losing time.
She cleared her throat. “Rapid-fire time. Short questions. Short answers. Favorites. Middle names. All the stuff we should know about each other. Little things.”
“So not the long, detailed stories of our painful break-ups,” he said with a smile.
Olli smiled too and shook her head. “Definitely not that.” There’d be more time for that, she was sure. She hoped. She couldn’t believe she’d been so bold as to coax his hand away from the steering wheel. He’d been clenching it so tightly, and something inside her just wanted him to relax.
He had too, and she honestly couldn’t remember ever hearing Spur Chappell laugh before. He’d held her hand the whole way to town too, and Olli couldn’t help it if she was a more touchy-feely type of woman. She loved hanging on a handsome man’s arm, and she’d forgotten just how much.
“I’ll start,” she said, gathering her hair and putting it over her shoulders as if preparing for battle. “Siblings?”
“Seven brothers. You?”
“Just the two. One brother. One sister. Both younger than me. Both married with children.” She didn’t mean to deliver those facts with any bitterness at all, but it had been there, bright and hot on her tongue.
If Spur heard it, he didn’t indicate. “I’m the oldest too,” he said. “A couple of my brothers are dating people right now, but none of us are married.”
“But you have been.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
“Ian, for about half a year,” Spur said. “Blaine was engaged once. Trey too.”
Olli nodded. She wanted those stories for sure, just not right now. “Favorite food, go.”
“French fries. No, wait, red licorice. Wait.” He grinned. “French fries.”
She grinned at him. He was so easy to talk to, and she couldn’t believe she’d never seen that before.
“What you do in your spare time?” he asked.
“I don’t have spare time. Do you?”
“Not much, but I do like to go horseback riding every chance I get, and believe it or not, I like to—” He cleared his throat in a semi-aggressive, grinding kind of way. “I like to knit while I watch a show in the evening, right before bed.”
Olli blinked, sure she’d heard him wrong. “Okay, wait.” She held up both hands and leaned back in the booth. The picture in her mind was just too hilarious. “I’m seeing you sitting up in bed, like, I don’t know. The Big Bad Wolf or something. Knitting in the near darkness with the flickering TV on. Is that what you’re telling me?”
Spur looked mildly horrified. “The Big Bad Wolf?”
“You know, after he’s swallowed the granny in the story. He’s wearing that nightgown and that little flowered cap.” Her grin felt like it would crack her face in half. “She—he—knits while he waits for Little Red Riding Hood to show up.”
“No,” Spur practically barked. “There is no nightgown, and no little flowered cap. I watch this horse rescue operation show, and I just need something to keep my hands busy.”
“What do you make?” she asked.
“Trivets,” he said, and Olli barely contained her laughter. “Hats. Pot holders. I started a blanket once, but I don’t have the attention span for that.”
“So something you can make in an evening.”
“How long do you think it takes to knit a hat?” he asked.
“I have no idea, Spur,” she teased. “I don’t knit before bed.”