My chuckle stays strangled in my mouth. Mom used to say that, but never to me. When she came into my life, I was already older, or acting like it. No one ever babied me, and although it’s not something I want, it moves me deeply.
She’ll be a great mom some day.
Unable to deal with the feelings overtaking me, I follow my wife’s orders and turn to go back to bed.
“You again?” Willow exclaims, frustration in her tone. Is she actually talking to the ghosts? I stop on the first step and listen. “All that hotness he parades around,” she mumbles barely loudly enough for me to hear. “No wonder you don’t want to leave.”
So she thinks I’m hot.
I teeter on the staircase. Should I go back down and… and what?
Hmm. Any other woman, I’d go back down there and just… watch her, knowing what she thinks. Try some light banter. Offer to sit on the porch and watch the stars and if she says yes, read her body language. Slide my arm around her shoulders.
Kiss her.
Read how she kisses me back.
See where the night takes us.
But this is Willow. Who’s doing me and my family a solid. Going out of her way to save our small town.
Just because she thinks I’m hot doesn’t mean anything.
She only agreed to be my wife.
Okay, and to sleep in my bed.
And maybe I’ve told her my intimate secrets.
But that doesn’t mean I should get carried away.
I’m reading this wrong, I know I am. I’m losing sight of the reason for all this. And I can’t afford to lose everything simply because I now have feelings.
Because if Beck is right, Gail is back in town, stirring up trouble.
twenty-six
Willow
Once I take care of the ghosts, I sleep like a baby and wake up refreshed to a hot cup of coffee—but no husband. Good. I don’t need the reminder of how good he looked last night, bare-chested in the dark hallway.
Encouraged by my success with the other residents of Lilyvale, I’m ready to tackle my next task: making the store’s display windows more appealing. Beyond being the placeholder wife, I want to add tangible value. Create something that would makemeproud.
Because honestly, the store looks sad. It used to be a fun place to shop or just browse around. It’s become… utilitarian. For obvious reasons, I’ve always had butterflies in my stomach when I came here, but it had nothing to do with the store and everything to do with its owner.
Now that I’m looking at it with a more critical eye… Yeah, I’m totally going to have fun with it.
This time, instead of stripping the windows bare of their current displays and working in front of the entire town for hours, I’ll paper the windows with something more interesting to gape at than my ass up in the air while I work inside.
I pop into Noah’s office. “Where can I find old photos of the store?” I ask him.
His gaze seems to take inventory of me, and suddenly it gets very hot in this small space. “The attic at Lilyvale.” He removes his glasses. “I could show you. What’s this for?”
I wet my lips. Images of Noah and me in yet another dark and secluded area dance in front of my eyes. I know what’s under his T-shirt. I know how strong his arms are and how his bare skin smells.
“The windows?” I answer.
He leans back in his chair, arms crossed, amusement in his eyes. “What about the windows?” His lips twitch, and the heat pooling in my center becomes untenable.
