“You have no idea,” Luke responded. “Welcome to a slow-paced lifestyle, my friend.”
Seth sighed. It was what he’d claimed to want. Now he just had to figure out how to live with it.
* * *
On the trip to the mainland, Seth took care of his errands first, then drove to the nearest big box store for paint and supplies. He figured he was in for a long morning. Not that he’d ever gone shopping for paint with a woman before, but he couldn’t imagine that Abby had come with specific ideas in mind.
He should have known better. This was the most organized woman he’d ever met, after all.
She gravitated toward the displays, her eyes lit up. She immediately reached for a pale sage-green paint chip. “This is beautiful,” she said. “So soothing. Don’t you think so?”
“Sure,” Seth said, more interested in the sparkle in her eyes than the paint color.
“Good. I’ll probably need three gallons of this for the living room and dining room. Could you have them mix it, while I finish choosing?”
He blinked. “That’s it? You’re not going to weigh a dozen other colors? There must be a bunch of other paint chips similar to this.”
“Why would I? This one’s perfect.” She shooed him along to find a sales clerk.
Ten minutes later she joined them with paint chips for the bedrooms and both bathrooms, plus the trim. Even the clerk looked impressed.
“Now here’s a woman who knows her own mind,” he said to Seth. “You’re a lucky man. I’ve seen some guys trail around after their wives for hours, finally pick out a paint and then turn right around and return it the next day.”
“That could still happen,” Seth said direly, envisioning a trip back to the same store tomorrow.
The clerk shook his head. “Not this time. If I see you in here again, it will be for something besides paint.”
Seth might have made him a bet, but Abby was regarding them both with an expression that suggested she wasn’t entirely happy about Seth’s doubts.
After they’d loaded up the car, he turned to her. “That went a lot more quickly than I’d imagined it would.”
She gave him a wry look. “So I gathered.”
“How about lunch? We have time before the ferry heads back.”
“Lunch sounds good,” she said at once. “There’s a restaurant I’ve heard a lot about. I wrote down the address in case we had time. Would that be okay with you?”
“Sure,” Seth said, trying to imagine what sort of expensive gourmet restaurant would entice her. He reminded himself it didn’t matter. That’s what credit cards were for, though his rarely came out of his wallet. He’d always been a pay-as-you-go guy, the exact opposite of his sister Laura.
He set the GPS in the car, following directions that took them to a small, nondescript strip mall. He turned to Abby. “You sure this is the right place?”
She nodded and gestured toward a tiny restaurant at the far end, her eyes alight. “There it is.”
He blinked at the sign on the door. It looked to him like a small Mexican grocery store. Since she seemed confident, he shrugged and pulled into a parking space out front. At least it wasn’t going to break the bank, that was for sure.
Inside, the heady aroma of spices made his mouth start to water. Although the front of the place was filled with Mexican specialty items, he spotted a few tables in back and a doorway that led onto a small patio with bright fuchsia bougainvillea covering the high privacy fence. Mexican pottery filled with more colorful plants lined the walkways that wound between the tables. It was tiny but utterly charming.
As soon as they were seated, a waiter hurried over with menus. Abby waved them off. “What do you recommend?” she asked. “What are your specialties?”
His eyes lit up. “You trust me to select,” he suggested. “You will be pleased.”
“Perfect,” she told him, then turned to Seth. “Does that work for you?”
Given the smells emanating from the kitchen as they’d passed through, he was more than willing to go along with it. “Absolutely,” he said, earning a delighted smile from their server.
He brought them ice-cold Mexican beers while they waited, then served two hot plates filled with enchiladas, beans, rice and guacamole.
Seth had eaten his share of Mexican food and this looked no different than most. Then he took his first forkful of the succulent stuffed enchiladas and nearly groaned with pleasure.
There was heat and smokiness in the spices and the tenderest beef he’d ever tasted.
“How on earth did you know about this place?” he asked Abby, whose eyes were actually closed as she savored her own first bite.
“I read about it in a guidebook to out-of-the-way restaurants worth finding. Several friends who were visiting the area tried it and raved. They were absolutely right. This food is incredible.” She grinned at Seth. “We have to come back. I want to try everything.”
The server overheard them and beamed proudly. “I’m so glad you’re enjoying it,” he said. “My family began this business ten years ago.”
“You own it?” Abby asked. “Why haven’t you considered expanding?”
“We like this location,” he said simply. “We’re able to keep our overhead low, so it helps to keep our prices affordable. There’s an immigrant population nearby that relies on us for spices and other items hard to find elsewhere. We might draw fewer tourists, but they leave happy. And we do well enough. Word of mouth keeps us busy.”
“I’m not sure I’m going to tell another soul,” Abby said. “I want to be able to get a table whenever I come.”
He laughed at that. “For you, beautiful señorita, I will always find room.”
After they’d shared a creamy flan for dessert and had their coffee, Abby spoke with the owner again. She thanked him profusely for the meal and his hospitality.
“We’ll be back. I promise you that.”
“Gracias. I will look forward to it,” he told
