“Gentlemen about this?” I asked.
Billy nodded his head and said, “Always.”
I hit the side of his truck. “I’ll pick ya up in a couple of hours.”
I stood there and watched as my best friend drove away. I turned and climbed over the gate before taking off toward the house. Maybe a good, hard run would help me figure out these feelings floating around that I’d never experienced before. As I ran faster and faster, I couldn’t seem to shake the blue-gray eyes from my head as I thought about what Billy had said.
I hated to admit this, but I was ready to fight my best friend to the death for Emma.
My Emma.
“Did you meet anyone today, darling?” my mother asked as she gave me a sweet smile.
I smiled and nodded my head. “A few people, but no one like my friends back home.”
My mother gave me the you-better-watch-out look.
I sat down and let out a sigh. I had planned to hate Mason. Moving from Fredericksburg to Mason had been bad enough, but the thought of making new friends had pained me. My only saving grace was Margie, my cousin. When she had introduced me to Anna, I’d liked her almost immediately. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that the girl was a sexpot and a ditz, but she was funny and actually very sweet. She did like the boys though. Then, I’d met Wayne. He was a typical guy.
Nothing new there.
“So, did you meet girls and boys or just girls?” my mother asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.
“Both.”
There was no sense in lying because I’d seen my mother and aunt walking by the drugstore. They’d looked in when I was saying good-bye to Garrett.
Garrett Mathews—that boy has me confused for the first time in my life.
My mother let out a little giggle. “I saw you talking to Garrett Mathews. He’s a nice boy.”
My mouth dropped open. “H-how do you know Garrett?”
My mother was from Mason, so I didn’t even know why I’d asked that question. She probably knew his parents or something.
She turned and began cutting up sirloin for sauerbraten. “I went to high school with his parents. I might have had a crush on his father at one point before I met your father.”
I felt my face blush just from my mother admitting to liking another man besides my daddy. “Mom, can I ask you something?”
She set her knife down and wiped her hands on her apron as she leaned against the counter. “Of course you can.”
I took in a deep breath and said a quick prayer. “When did you know you were in love with Daddy?”
She smiled so big that it caused me to smile. “The first time I saw him. I was walking with my friends to class, and I saw him walking toward us. The moment he looked into my eyes, my breath caught, and I got a weird little feeling in my stomach. I’d never felt like that before, not with any of the guys I went to high school with…not even Thomas Mathews,” she said with a wink.
I let out a giggle and shook my head.
My parents had met and fallen in love in college. My father had been studying to be a doctor, and my mother had been going to school to be a nurse. They had lived in Fredericksburg ever since Daddy got out of college. He had worked there since I was a baby, but once an opportunity had opened up in Mason for a doctor, my mother hadn’t even had to ask twice. My father had known how much she loved home, and he’d moved us here, so she could be closer to her parents.
I looked at my mother and smiled. “Love at first sight?”
She giggled again. “Yes, Emma Rose, love at first sight. Your father turned around and followed my friends and me for a bit while we walked to the café for lunch. Before we walked in, he asked to talk to me. We spoke for a bit. Then, he asked me out, and I said yes. The rest is history.”
“Your love story is different though,” I said in almost a whisper.
I thought my parents’ love story was one of a kind.
I’d figured out that all guys just wanted one thing. I’d had a crush on Nelson Wells for so long, and once he’d asked me out, I’d thought I was in heaven. Of course, it was right before we’d moved. Nelson and I had gone to see a movie with a bunch of friends. When he’d started sliding his hand up my dress, I’d quickly learned his idea of true love was nothing like mine.