He Asked for a Convenient Wife, I Taught Him to Say No novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: A Table for Two People

Her bargain purchase of incomplete table settings shows she also fixes other people's burdens; Tate makes her an offer she can decline.

The table I bought for Tate's kitchen came with three salt shakers and no pepper.

I discovered the shakers after we carried it through his door.

They rolled from the drawer, each shaped like a different farm animal.

The cow had no stopper, the pig had no holes, and the duck faced backward.

Tate caught the duck before it reached the floor.

"That one appears undecided," he observed.

I set the cow upright and examined its empty underside.

"It was a very good price," I told him.

"The seller's daughter needed the kitchen cleared."

He looked at the table filling most of his narrow doorway.

"So you bought the kitchen?" he asked.

I pushed my sleeves above my wrists and moved around him.

"Only the useful part," I said.

Then the table's loose leaf slid out and struck my boot.

He put the duck down before he tried to help.

We caught the leaf between us and leaned it against the wall.

His kitchen already had a sound little table beneath the window.

I had known that before I paid for the larger one.

The seller had sounded so relieved when I offered to take it.

Tate watched me look from the old table to the new one.

He did not need to say anything about bad bargains.

I had provided the entire demonstration without requiring an audience.

"You may keep the small one," I told him.

"It is my kitchen," he replied gently.

I put the pig beside the duck and took my hands off both.

That was the problem with helping before somebody asked.

It was difficult to stop without feeling the sting of failure.

He moved his old chairs away from the window and brought me one.

Then he sat opposite me at the small table and served supper.

There were roasted potatoes, green beans, and chicken with crisp skin.

He had asked what I liked before he cooked it.

I had nearly answered with whatever was easiest for him.

Now I tasted the potatoes and let myself enjoy being remembered.

"This is good," I said.

He accepted the compliment without promising another meal to somebody else.

For a while, we ate with the big unwanted table blocking the door.

His younger sister arrived by the back entrance and stopped beside it.

Joelle Fenwick wore a green shirt and carried a bag of apples.

She looked at the three shakers lined beneath the window.

"Did you buy a very small zoo?" she asked me.

"The admission price was reasonable," I replied.

She gave Tate the apples and asked whether she was interrupting.

He said yes, kindly enough that she looked twice at him.

Then she grinned, told us to enjoy supper, and left through the back.

I watched him put the apples aside without apologizing for our evening.

"You could do that with everybody," I said.

"I wanted this one," he replied.

He looked at me across the small table and waited.

I could have made the next part easier with another argument.

He would stop proposing a marriage if I kept proving it inconvenient.

Then I would have to admit I wanted him to ask anyway.

"What would we expect from each other?" I said.

He put his fork down before he answered.

"Honesty," he said.

"A home we can both want, and the right to change our minds."

I looked at the table I had bought to make somebody else relieved.

I did not want to carry that habit into a marriage and call it generosity.

"I will not promise to make everybody like me," I told him.

"I would not know how," he said.

"I can promise to like you myself."

I laughed, and he smiled into his glass without taking the words back.

He had given me an answer without assigning me a job.

Behind him, the cow salt shaker emptied itself across the windowsill.

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