Free The Carpenter & the Queen by Michelle Lashier Page B

misbehavior.
    Having seen this type of scenario played out
many times with his nieces, Paul realized his chance had come to
get Claire’s attention by distracting Sam. This wasn’t a direct
move toward asking Claire out, certainly, but one he was more
comfortable with. He noted ironically that confronting a hostile
child using clothing as a bludgeon frightened him less than
speaking with a beautiful woman.
    Paul pushed his cart up the short aisle and
stopped near Sam.
    “Hey. Nice coat.” He kept his voice low so
he wouldn’t interrupt the ladies’ conversation. “Can I look?”
    Sam stopped long enough to consider Paul but
did not reply.
    “Is that a snowboarding jacket? I thought I
saw a guy in the Olympics wear something like this.” He gently
pulled the jacket toward him and studied the gecko detail on the
back. “You snowboard?”
    “I’m pretty good,” Sam said with
condescension. “My mom won’t let me go down the big hills. But I
know how to take jumps.”
    “I bet you do. I used to snowboard before I
hurt my leg.”
    “How’d you do that?”
    “Car accident.”
    Sam grunted.
    “Paul! Hi.”
    The other woman had left, and now Claire
smiled at him.
    “Hey.” Paul glanced at Sam. “I hear your
boy’s a snowboarder.”
    “So he is.” Claire rested a hand on Sam’s
shoulder. “I’m scared to death of those things. I don’t even
ski.”
    “She’s afraid of getting hurt,” Sam said
with some disgust.
    “It was my grandmother,” Claire explained.
“She died after breaking her hip in a bad fall.”
    “That’s too bad.”
    “She slipped on the ice and fell. Nobody saw
her, so she had to pull herself back into the house to call
911.”
    Paul grimaced in what he hoped showed his
commiseration.
    “Sam thinks I’m silly,” Claire
continued.
    “It’s scary to fall down and have no one
pull you up.” Paul unconsciously rubbed his right leg.
    “By the way,” Claire said, changing the
subject, “we drove by that castle in Canadian Lakes you told me
about.”
    “What’d you think?”
    “A little run down, but remarkable all the
same. I peeked in the windows and saw as much as I could.”
    “Glad you found it. My directions were
okay?”
    “They were excellent. I get lost in the
grocery store, but I found the castle right off.”
    Sam tugged on his mother’s arm, but she
ignored him, instead, looking at Paul shyly.
     
    “Hey, we’ve got a chess question for you. I
heard somewhere that you can redeem captured pieces in a game. Is
that true?”
    Paul ran his palm along his buzz cut as he
thought. “Well, not exactly.”
    “I probably made it up.”
    “No . . . no. The closest thing I can think
of has to do with the pawns. If you can get a pawn all the way to
the other side of the board, you can name it whatever you want and
it’ll act that way. Say you’ve lost your knight. You could call
that pawn your knight, then switch them out.”
    “That works for any piece?”
    “Except the king, of course.”
    “My pawns never make it that for. I didn’t
know such a thing was possible.”
    Until this second, Paul hadn’t thought
asking Claire out was possible, but when she smiled delicately,
lowered her eyes, and tucked her hair behind her ear, Paul felt his
heart kick him into action.
    “So,” he began. “Do you get a lunch break at
the library?”
    “I’m occasionally released for
nourishment.”
    “Well . . . I was thinking . . . maybe we
could meet for lunch on Monday.”
    “Sure.” She smiled. “I’d like that.”
    They agreed on a time, then Paul said
goodbye. He waved to Sam, but the boy did not return the
acknowledgement.
    At home that evening, Paul contemplated the
new turn of events. Amazed at his own bravery in asking her out, he
was even more surprised she had said yes. Why had she, anyway?
    Even if she was interested in him, wouldn’t
one lunch with him be enough to turn her off? After all, dates
required speaking.
    He needed a plan that would get him