******
Mattie tucked her leg under her as she sat on her sofa and graded her students' essays. She leaned her head back on the cushion for a moment and closed her eyes as the violin strains of Massenet's Meditation came to its soothing conclusion, and all she could see were his dark eyes as he'd told her that her name was enchanting. She smiled to herself as she envisioned his warm and genuine gaze, and his engaging smile and she found herself wishing she could hear his voice again right that very moment, even after only one evening together. She went over in her mind each expression that she'd seen on his handsome face as she'd sat across from him, and she knew that something important was happening in her life, and she was eager to see where their mutual attraction would lead. And, it was most definitely mutual. She'd had no hesitation whatsoever accepting his next invitation, and she couldn't wait to ride with him. She remembered when he'd helped her with her jacket, and she replayed that moment in her mind...the subtle strength of his hand through the fabric as he patted her shoulder, and she wondered what he might have been thinking. That one gesture was both comforting, and intimate, and enigmatic, and in her mind's new scenario, she'd turned to him, and gazed up into his eyes, and he'd taken her in his strong arms and kissed her right then and there, in front of everyone in the restaurant.
Mattie jerked awake, realizing that the scratchy sound she was hearing was the needle repeating it's movement across the last grooves of the record, and she tossed the papers aside, and shook her head at herself. She got up and carefully lifted the needle off the record, and turned the player off. She'd see him again in three days, and now, she knew she would be counting the hours until their date at Birchwood Stables.