Love Struck Café by Carolyn Brown

Author:Carolyn Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Stars danced around a quarter moon hanging in a black velvet sky that evening. Jasmine could see the whole show out the side window of Flint’s truck. She wondered if she had just committed to something she would regret later. Flint had mentioned that he didn’t do things on impulse. Jasmine couldn’t really say that. She had quit her job in Sherman and bought a café on impulse. She had hired a total stranger to help her at Chicken Fried and then offered him free room and board. And now she had made up her mind to move into the same house with that stranger.

When they got back to Ringgold, Flint slowed as they got near the café parking lot. “I thought maybe we’d go up to that casino and have a barbecue sandwich, or whatever else you might want, to celebrate my decision to buy the ranch.”

“Are you asking me on a date?” Jasmine asked.

“I guess I am. It can be anything you want it to be—a dinner between friends where we’ll talk about your cookbooks and what we’ll do at the ranch, or it can be a date,” he answered. “You call the shots.”

Jasmine was hardly dressed for a first date, but then, the past three days had taught her that this man behind the wheel was no ordinary cowboy. At least the jeans and shirt she’d worn all day didn’t have stains on them. “A barbecue sandwich does sound good, but I usually clean up a little better than this for a date.”

“You look great.” He passed by the café and headed on north.

Cowboys, truck drivers, and folks just passing through stopped by the café all the time since it was right off Highway 81. Pretty often, guys flirted with her, but none of them ever sent her hormones into overdrive like Flint did by simply saying that she looked great.

“From what the sign said, it’s only five miles from here to the casino. Terral must be pretty big to have a casino,” he said.

“The town might have four hundred people, but it’s doubtful,” she told him. “You’ll find lots of casinos in Oklahoma wherever there’s a bridge across the Red River.”

“Do you ever play the slots or the poker tables?” Flint asked.

“Not me.” Jasmine shook her head. “I’m way too tight with my money to give it away like that. I don’t buy lottery tickets either. I’m one of those ‘Bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush’ people. Sometimes, it is kind of nice to sneak off over the bridge and grab one of their sandwiches, though. They really are good.”

“Well said,” Flint nodded in agreement. “I’m not a gambler, either, and yet here I am, taking a chance on a small ranch with neighbors I only met three days ago.”

“Some things are gambles, others are just a matter of using common sense. There might be a fine line between them, but you’re smart enough to know the difference,” she said.

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