“Why would we go to a crowded bar when we’ve got music, a dance floor, and beer right here?” She sat back down on the sofa and picked up her beer.

Tex woke up, stretched, and hopped down off the sofa. He made his way to the kitchen, where he lapped up water from a bowl and ate a few bites of his dry food, then he flopped down under the table.

“Because I might want people to think we were out on a date,” Cody answered.

*  *  *

Had Stevie really heard Cody right? She wondered if maybe she ought to ask him to repeat what he’d said, then realized from the quizzical look on his face that he had indeed just said something about a date. She jerked her head around, almost choked trying to get the swallow of beer down, and gasped. “You’re asking me on a date?”

“Yes, I am, but from that reaction, I guess that I’m going to suffer from rejection.” Cody picked up his beer and took a long drink.

“You aren’t God, so you don’t know what I’m thinking,” she told him.

“Then you’re saying yes?” Cody asked. “But going out dancing was just a suggestion. If you’d rather go out to dinner and maybe to a movie, that’s fine with me. The snow is melting, and we’ve gotten word that the road from here to town will be clear by day after tomorrow. I want to spend more time with you.”

“After you broke up with me, I never thought you’d ever ask me out. But I would like to spend more time with you too, so once I’m back home, give me a call. You’ve got my number,” Stevie said.

Twenty years ago, if Cody Ryan had called her for a second chance, Stevie would have danced a jig around the floor. Her heart would have thumped right out of her chest, and sucking on lemons wouldn’t have been able to wipe the grin off her face. Ten years ago, when she came home and saw him at church that Christmas, if he had asked her out, even just for ice cream, she would have probably told him to drop dead and go to hell.

Time and life change the way we look at things. Those were some of her mother’s last words before she died.

You are so right, Mama, Stevie agreed now.

“I will call you, but how about Sunday?” Cody asked. “I’ll pick you up for church, and afterwards, we can go over to Paris for dinner, and then maybe take a long slow drive back home.”

“I’d like that,” Stevie answered as she recognized the piano lead-in for “Broken Roads” by Rascal Flatts. “Hey, this song could be Jesse and Addy’s theme song, couldn’t it?”