“He’s an entrepreneur, then. Sounds like he and I’ll get along just fine.”

Lauren panicked. “What do you mean?” she asked, feeling silly, but she had to know.

“If we’re going to work together, I want to meet the man. I try to meet as many of our suppliers as I can. It’s not always possible, but this, well, I’ll let you talk to him first. I know he’s not too thrilled about jumping on the Internet bandwagon, but I think I can change his mind. Now, I want to ask you something, and you’ll tell me if I’m out of line?”

“Of course.”

“John is smitten with you.” He chuckled. “Though he didn’t use that word, it’s what us old guys call more than a casual date; I think those are the words he used.”

Shit.

Where to start? What to say?

“He’s a great guy. I think we hit it off.”

At least that was true. Not knowing what John had told his father, she didn’t want to say more for fear of assuming too much in the sense that she’d decided he was definitely the guy who’d knocked her socks off, took the wind from her sails, whatever.

“He said the same about you, though he led me to believe you two might end up being more than just friends.”

Her heart filled with joy. Yes, they were on the same page. She knew he’d felt what she had. She gave Mr. G her first real genuine smile of the day. “He’s probably right.”

“Yep, I could tell. So you’ll have dinner with us tonight? At the house, and we can talk more about the book, and I can watch you and my son together.”

He wasn’t asking, but she was good with this. “I would love to,” she said, and meant it. “Something light.” She added, fearing a repeat of this morning.

“I’ll keep that in mind when I order up the groceries.”

“Really? You use your service?”

“Heck yes, I do. All that traffic, I don’t want to drive in it unless it’s absolutely necessary. Helping to keep my employees employed.”

“So you’re making dinner yourself?” The words flew out of her mouth.

“Always. I like tinkering around in the kitchen. John does too. We’ve been our own family for so long, and as he got older, it seemed we spent a lot of our quality time together while we made dinner.”