Page 237 of The Professor's Wife

“Quiet,” I answered quickly.

Private,I wanted to add, but I wasn’t bold enough.

“There’s a restaurant at my hotel,” he said carefully. “It has booths in the back. It’s dim.”

“Okay.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze dropping briefly to the ground. “Okay.”

He began to walk, and I followed beside him.

Out in broad daylight, I found it difficult to relax. I glanced around us, watching every car and every person we passed.

The foreign feeling of being outside hadn’t faded.

If anything, I felt more awkward and out of place.

If Tristan noticed, he didn’t say anything.

We passed the restaurant where he had been singing.

Two blocks farther downhill, we reached the large hotel.

It certainly wasn’t some cheap backpacker lodge, as Oliver had speculated.

I didn’t say that aloud, but it made me curious about Tristan.

Though not as curious as I was about why he had spoken to me the night before while I waited for Oliver to pay.

If his hotel had been only two blocks away, he hadn’t needed to sit outside the restaurant looking as though he were waiting for a cab.

You know why, Daisy.

The answer was in the way he looked at me.

He had waited outside for the same reason I had returned to the restaurant.

I looked at Tristan again, filled with a longing I couldn’t understand.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The restaurant was dim. I supposed it was going for that dark, intimate ambiance. It was also very well air-conditioned, with no windows. You wouldn’t know it was nearly afternoon on a hot summer day.

Though it was packed for lunchtime, we were led to a small booth straightaway. The hostess passed us our menus, filled our glasses with water, and left.

Tristan stood the guitar case upright, leaning it against the wall by the booth. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he slid his satchel off and put it down on the seat. His tanned arms bulged with every movement, and I had to look down into my glass of water to clear my head of the visual.

He was tall and solid, but unlike Oliver, he didn’t seem to expect the room to rearrange itself around him. He was hard and full of edges, taking up too much space in the small booth without appearing aware of it.

When he sat across from me, his knee brushed mine beneath the table.

Neither of us moved.

His scent reached me across the narrow table. It carried something wild with it—rain, earth, open air. He smelled like a world without locked doors, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe deeply enough.

“You said you’re from a small town,” I found myself saying, intrigued as he looked at me.

He nodded. “Grande Creek.”