“Doing the deliveries to escape your moms?” she asked, capping the pen and handing me the clipboard. Our fingers brushed, sending a jolt of awareness up my arm.
“Something like that.” I tilted my head. “Have we met?”
“Fuck, Luke. Yes, we’ve met,” she said. “We’ve known each other forever. I worked for your family for six years and lived in the apartment above the candy shop the whole time.”
I blinked, realizing who she was. “Cult girl? When did you get hot?”
She looked down at her maple sugar-stained jeans and ratty t-shirt, then back at me. She raised an eyebrow, held eye contact for a beat, then turned and walked back inside without a word.
“Sorry. I’ll stop calling you cult girl!”
She didn’t turn around.
“If you would, um, remind me of your actual name, that would help!”
The factory door slammed behind her.
I stood frozen for a second after the door closed, the ghost of her touch still warm against my fingertips.
After only a brief brush of skin, something in my chest tilted, like a compass needle finding north. I hadn’t felt that kind of pull in years. Not since Eli.
I rubbed my thumb across the spot she’d touched, then forced myself toward the van before I did something stupid.
Get it together, Merrick.
I was here for three weeks, max. There was no way I could fuck the girl who used to hide behind bonnets and homespun dresses, even if she’s grown up into a curvy, gorgeous woman who short-circuits my brain with a fingertip.
I closed the doors and climbed into the driver’s seat, a blast of memories hitting me as I started the engine. This had been my job as a teenager, my way to escape the chaos of the candy factory.
My first three stops brought back a flood of memories. Everything reminded me of my favorite parts of working for my family business during my teen years. I’d forgotten how much I used to love driving around town, dropping off candy and chatting with Jake at the Maple Crossing Market, or sharing the latest gossip with Cammie at her gift shop. It was unsettling, after all the years of living in Boston, to step into shops where everyone knew my entire family and they were all thrilled to see me. In Boston, the clerks barely made eye contact, and everything was so much more efficient. You could be in and out in mere minutes, you didn’t have to stop for a half hour and recount all the gory details of your sister’s pregnancy and her early labor scare.
The fourth stop only listed a name and address, but the address was one I knew by heart, even after all this time. I’d spent most of my childhood there. I was going to the Honeyfern Inn. Eli’s place.
I pulled onto the main road, the familiar route to the inn embedded in my muscle memory despite six years of absence. How many times had I been down this road? Hundreds? Thousands? Every moment I could sneak away from family obligations or schoolwork, I’d been at Eli’s side, finding mischief at his grandfather’s historic inn. We’d been inseparable. Best friends. Soulmates.
Until we weren’t.
As the van rounded the curve revealing Ambervale Lake, a physical ache bloomed in my chest. The water was slate-gray today, reflectingthe November sky, but I could imagine it in every season—summer blue when we’d swum to the floating dock, autumn gold when we’d kayaked through fallen leaves, winter white when we’d skated across its frozen surface.
The inn came into view—three stories of weathered Victorian charm, its sage green clapboard looking more tired than I remembered. The wraparound porch still featured white rocking chairs, and the white gingerbread trim looked recently painted.
I parked in the small delivery lot and sat for a moment, trying to calm my racing heart. According to the order form, the box contained a gift assortment for Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, celebrating their 50th anniversary. Not for Eli directly. Maybe I wouldn’t even see him. Maybe his grandfather Henry would be at the desk, or they’d hired a manager.
“Fuck it.” I was a grown man with an MBA. I could deliver candy to my former best friend’s business without falling apart.
The steps creaked under my feet, the sound like a greeting from an old friend. I paused at the heavy wooden front door. Through the glass, I saw the warm glow of the lobby. For a heartbeat, I was sixteen again, showing up unannounced because I couldn’t stand another minute without seeing Eli.
I reached for the handle as the door swung open from inside.
And there he was.
Eli Corwin stood in the doorway, taller and broader than I remembered, his dark hair longer and slightly wild, as if he’d been running his hands through it. Stubble shadowed his square jaw, and there was a smudge of grease on his thickly muscled forearm. But his eyes—those piercing steel-blue eyes—were the same. They widened in shock when they landed on me.
“Luke?” His voice was deeper and rougher than I remembered, but it still made me shiver with a long-buried want.
“Hey.” That word felt inadequate and ridiculous. Six years of silence and that was all I managed?
Eli’s expression shifted from shock to something harder, more guarded. “What are you doing here?”
