Melissa: A Hathaway House Heartwarming Romance by Dale Mayer (good book club books txt) 📕

as Helga immediately laid down on top of it. “I don’t think that’s what it’s meant for,” she said, reaching out to scratch Helga on the back of the neck.

Helga just gave her a light woof and rolled over, exposing her belly. Melissa accommodated her, giving her a nice rub on her belly. When Helga seemed satisfied, Melissa chuckled and went back into the basket to find more items wrapped up there, things not easily identified. She pulled out the one on the top and realized it was a small pot pie. It looked like a chicken pot pie, and it smelled delicious, and it was still warm.

Her stomach immediately started growling, and, whereas she hadn’t been hungry before, now she was ravenous. Her appetite was taking advantage of being outside with the fresh air. She kept pulling out more and more items. Realizing that she couldn’t eat half of this, she shook her head and said out loud, “What on earth were you thinking?”

“Knowing Dennis,” a man said, “he was thinking that you probably wouldn’t be alone.”

She looked up to see Shane walking toward her, a broad smile on his face. She laughed with delight when he asked, “May I join you?”

Helga gave a soft woof and thumped her tail, but she didn’t stray from her spot on the tablecloth covering the ground.

Melissa chuckled. “Helga says, yes. Please,” she said. “I just needed to get outside for a little bit. The walls were closing in on me. Everybody’s telling me to figure stuff out, but I’m not getting any answers, so feeling a little bit like a failure …” she admitted.

“Ah,” he said, “we all have down days.” He sat down near Helga, giving her a gentle ear rub.

“And I know I shouldn’t let these down days get to me,” she said, “but that doesn’t seem to stop them from showing up, even though I tell them to stay away.”

“None of us have all the answers,” he said. “All we can do is give you suggestions. The answers are inside you, and it doesn’t matter what we say. It’s all got to be your way.”

“I get that,” she said. “It’s just a little frustrating when the answers aren’t coming.”

“Understood. We’ve all been there.” He looked at the basket and the contents she’d spread out and said, “Wow. Dennis really did fill you up, didn’t he?”

“He’s deadly,” she said. “A lot of food here.”

“Not that that’s a problem,” Shane said, “if you’re sharing.”

Helga let out another woof.

They both chuckled, as they shook their heads at the completely relaxed dog in their midst.

“I’m surprised she’s not interested in our food,” Shane noted.

“Looking at her,” Melissa said, “I would say she gets plenty of feedings during the day.”

Shane nodded. “I suspect all the animals are spoiled here, if Dani has anything to do with it.”

Melissa laughed, and they each reached for a separate pot pie. “It looks like there’s definitely two of everything,” she frowned. “Did he tell you that I was out here?”

“Nope. But I was in the lunchroom, looking for you, wondering if you were going to eat or how your day was going,” he said. “I didn’t have a session with you today, so I didn’t get my daily top-up.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s funny just how much I miss our connection on a day that we don’t have something together.”

“Well, we don’t have to rely on scheduled sessions though,” he said. “We can have lunches together, coffee together, dinner together.”

She smiled. “That almost sounds like a date.”

“It absolutely sounds like a date,” he said. “The question is whether that’s something you’re interested in or not?”

She looked at him, smiled, and said, “Absolutely. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I really wanted to figure all this out. That I didn’t want to lose track of you.”

“Not losing track of me,” he said, “leaves an awful lot open to interpretation.”

She frowned as she thought about that and then nodded. “I want to continue getting to know you,” she said. “It feels like I know you, but I don’t know as much as I would like to.”

“And how do you get to really know somebody?” he asked curiously.

“Spend a lot of time with them.”

“Or seeing them in tough times,” he said with a gentle grin. “That can shorten that time frame really fast.”

“Back to that’s why the relationships here flourish on a very different level, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. Just think of a real soul-deep relationship and how many layers are involved, and then think about how different a social more superficial relationship is and how long it takes to get through all those layers.”

She nodded in understanding. “Who knows how many layers because of the surgeries and just not dealing with that superficial level anymore.”

“Exactly,” he said. “So I ask you again. How do you feel about it being a date?”

She smiled, took a deep breath, and shyly said, “I’d love it.”

“Perfect,” he said. “So now that we’ve got that settled, what else is bothering you?”

“It’s not so much bothering me,” she said, “as much as I’m still feeling rootless, directionless.”

“And why is that?”

She winced.

He caught the look that crossed her face and said, “You know that you can tell me anything, right?”

“I know,” she said, “and it goes back to needing to tell you something important, needing to tell you what’s happening, when I’m ready to stop or when I’m ready to start something or if I want something and haven’t asked for it. It’s all wrapped up in itself.”

“So that sounds a bit ominous. I’m glad we got the date part through first.”

She laughed. “Well, we did, but it’s connected.”

He stared at her, one eyebrow raised, waiting.

But she wasn’t quite ready. She shrugged and said, “It’s not that easy.”

“None of this is,” he said. He finished his pie, rooted around inside the basket, and said, “What else have we got here?”

“You tell me,” she said, digging in beside him. “It looks like a lot, but I’m not exactly sure.”

He smiled.