“You’re off on Memorial Day?”
No, and he’d planned to work on another column in the morning while doing a third search of his office for the ledger. But that could wait. “Half a day. I can pick you up at the inn around eight. I might even clean up the back seat for you.”
She arched a brow. “Is there something special about the back seat?”
He wondered if she was aware she was leaning toward him, her dreamy malachite eyes holding his. He’d meant it as a joke, considering how much of a disaster his messy car was. But “back seat”had suddenly taken on a new meaning, and he was picturing them parked in a secluded, woody spot, climbing into the back seat together and—
“Honeys, I’m home!”
Seb jumped at Evelyn Margot’s overly loud and quite obnoxious entrance. Her timing, both good and bad, was another one of her gifts.
His sister poked her head into the living room. “Everyone decent?”
He face-palmed, then glanced at Jade. She was looking at Evelyn, but there was a rosy blush on her cheeks that hadn’t been there a second ago. Hmm, maybe he hadn’t imagined—or wished—that Jade’s enticing expression was real.
Evelyn laughed. “I bought snacks. I thought maybe we could watch a movie.”
But Jade was already yawning. When she was aware of it, she stopped. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Evelyn set two plastic Piggly Wiggly bags on the kitchen counter. “I don’t mind an early bedtime.”
Seb took that as his cue to go. He stood and turned to Jade. “See ya.” He almost said “tomorrow,” but if Evelyn Margot knew he and Jade were getting together, she wouldn’t let him be.
Jade nodded. “See ya.”
He passed by the kitchen, where Evelyn was putting away the groceries. “Thanks again. She’s gonna be okay.”
She gave him a sly look. “Looks like you will be too.”
Oh well, so much for Evelyn not figuring things out. He left the apartment, fully intending on going home and crashing. If he got up really early, he could get part of his column done and search the office before picking up Jade.
When he got home, though, he tried. He wasn’t in the mood to pen Seb’s View Part Deux either. But he was in the mood to writesomething that he should have been working on a long time ago. He sat down at the dining room table that was never used for actual dining and where his Royal typewriter made its home, a stack of crisp paper nearby waiting to be used. He cranked a sheet into the roller, and his fingers flew.
* * *
Monday morning, Kalista showed up atThe Times, still bummed that she had to work on a holiday. Then again, what else would she do? Hang out at Viv’s house? That might have been a little fun. Now that the hoedown was over, Viv was focusing on her wedding again, and she had mentioned yesterday that she wanted to start hand-lettering the invitation envelopes this week. She offered to show her how to do the calligraphy, but Kalista didn’t want to mess up the envelopes. She could lick a stamp, though.
Kalista was also tired, and that was solely her fault. After her conversation with Ryan, she had trouble falling asleep, so she grabbed a book from the bookcase and started to read.Pride and Prejudice.It kind of sounded familiar and she wondered if she was supposed to have read it in school in one of her English classes. She’d paid little attention to her assignments, but she was a decent test taker, even though she rarely remembered the information past the actual test. Two pages into the book and she was fast asleep. Who knew reading was the antidote to insomnia?
Tyler’s car was in the parking lot, and a light shined underneath the basement door. When she walked inside, she saw him stuffing flyers into each newspaper on top of the flat stack on the table. “I could have done those,” she said.
He didn’t look at her. He also didn’t tell her to roll up the papers. But if she didn’t get moving, she’d be late for her route, so shejoined him at the table and started rolling. It was only the two of them, and soon the other carriers would show up. If she was going to do the gratitude thing, she needed to do it now.
“Thanks for buying me a funnel cake.” She injected more enthusiasm into her voice than was probably warranted, but she had to get his attention somehow. Coldness was coming off him in waves.
Silence.
His refusal to respond was vexing. Hmm,vexing. Good word— she’d read it last night. Totally appropriate.
It was eerily quiet as they worked on their tasks. Kalista was only a quarter of the way through rolling the newspapers when Tyler put in the last flyer. Without a word, he left the basement and went upstairs.
She stopped and watched him go. Instead of being vexed, she was troubled. She’d hurt people’s feelings before—some because they deserved it, others accidentally. Either way, it rarely affected her this much. How long was he going to give her the silent treatment? She hated the silent treatment.
An apology was in order. Her least favorite thing. Hopefully that would thaw the ice between them, and they could go back to the way things were when she first got the job and he was so friendly and complimentary to her.
After filling Bo’s truck with the papers, she got inside. Driving this thing wasn’t so bad, and she was surprised by how quickly she was getting used to it. Totally not as comfy as her BMW, and she’d have to ask Bo to fix the janky air-conditioning before it got really hot, but she didn’t need it in the mountains right now.
As she went along the route, she got into a rhythm. She didn’t even mind getting out and putting the papers in their special places for their particularly persnickety customers. When shestopped by Mrs. Joyce’s house, the woman was outside with her little dog, Pepé.
