Page 2

He wanted to be a part of that.

He wanted his family to be a part of that.

“Which girl?” Charlene asked, her eyes looking sharp and intelligent.

“Orchid Baldwin.” He glanced around again, not wanting word to get out that he was hiring the matchmakers or attempting to. He figured the whole town already knew he was interested in Orchid. He figured they also already knew that she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in him.

It was a bit of a blow for his pride. After all, in the world he inhabited, he didn’t have any trouble getting dates.

Not until he came to Sweet Water.

“You’ve asked Orchid out before, haven’t you?” Charlene said, her finger tapping her chin. The other ladies leaned in, as though they wanted to catch every word. He didn’t know how they made their plans or did what they did, but he knew that Bryce credited them with getting him and his fiancée, Peyton, together. And they’d done it in such a way that Bryce hadn’t realized what they were doing.

After all, if a man felt pushed in one direction, he almost always felt the need to push back, even if he was cutting off his nose to spite his face.

“I have. Multiple times. She said no every time.” He didn’t believe in being a show-off, exactly. But he had tried to impress upon her that he was successful, athletic—he hadn’t been above flashing a few muscles or his killer dimple. He let her know that he knew how to show her a good time and would take her out of this slow-as-molasses, cowpoke town. As much as he admired Sweet Water and the people in it, he figured it had to get boring. All Orchid ever seemed to do was work and help people.

He could afford to do things that would make her smile. Travel. Have people waiting on them hand and foot and enjoy the easy life.

Nothing he’d said or done had made any kind of impression on her.

“That says to me that she’s probably not interested,” Charlene said, the expression on her face not changing.

Dwight wasn’t sure what to say about that. He didn’t feel like he had stalked her. Asking her out five times in twelve months or so wasn’t really nagging. Was it?

He always took no for an answer, without trying to push her into anything.

He still tried to strike up conversations with her, talking about baseball, workouts, Houston, and traveling, talking about some of the places he’d been, like his vacation on the Mediterranean and sightseeing in Paris.

He left out the fact that he’d been with a couple of his exes during those trips. He wasn’t a complete idiot. He didn’t talk about the women he’d dated with the woman he wanted to be with. Since he’d met Orchid, he hadn’t wanted to be with anyone else, anyway.

“You’re saying I should give up?” He finally spoke when Charlene seemed like she wasn’t inclined to.

“Give up or change your strategy.”

“That’s why I’m coming to you.”

Charlene nodded, matter-of-factly, like she’d already figured that out but just wanted to make sure.

“Do you think you’ll take me on?” he felt compelled to ask.

“I think we’re going to need to talk about it and discuss it amongst ourselves.” Charlene looked around the group of ladies, who didn’t exactly look eager to take on a non-native.

That was the one thing he didn’t like about small towns. They were very closed off to any kind of change, and that included new people in town.

Cities didn’t have that kind of problem. They accepted everyone with open arms, then promptly forgot about them.

He supposed it was better to be a little standoffish at first, and then when they accepted someone, they made a commitment for life.

That’s the way a small town was.

Their standoffishness with strangers was a self-preservation thing, because if too many people from different backgrounds flooded in, the town no longer was a safe, welcoming haven, but the very fabric of the town would be changed and most likely not for the better. There were reasons people left the big cities.

He understood all of that and didn’t consider it wrong. If someone wanted to protect their heritage, if a town wanted to keep their safe borders, he couldn’t fault them.

Even if that meant he had to earn his spot here.

Charlene’s eyes narrowed even more, if that were possible. “I think it’s a valid question for me to ask you what you see in Orchid?”