They don’t know I’ve trusted Cupid’s Bloom Co. more than once to send me a bride who’d want to settle down at my side, or how many times it’s failed. No one wants to admit they need help, or that they can’t even succeed when they take the easy route and fail that way, too.
Grimacing as the printer whirs next to me, I log in to my email and check for anything important.
Hardly to my surprise, I’ve got a handful of them from the company itself. Every time a bride changes her mind, they send me their condolences and promises of another opportunity for a new fated match.
I think three times is enough. Fuck Cupid’s Bloom. I’ll just die alone, I’ve already made up my mind.
Scrolling through the emails, I spot one withsurveyin the subject line. Cracking it open, I’m happy to tell them exactly how I feel about my failed attempts and how I won’t be trying them again. Not in a damn heartbeat.
The company promises a ninety-five percent happiness guarantee. Well, they should hear from the ones who don’t get that happily ever after.
While I’m typing away an entire novel in their little box, I’m eventually disrupted by Kelsie. As soon as I hear her voice, my body moves on its own, closing out the website before I can even finish. Damn it.
Next time, I’ll really give it to them. It’s easier to complain in a chatbox.
“Are you expecting someone?” Looking over my quick movement, she lifts a brow. “Got a lady out here.”
The one time I come down, what’s the chance that I can’t just hop in and out?
“Is it a customer?” Grimacing at the thought of going out there and letting someone chat up my ear for more than five minutes makes my skin feel tight and hot. “They don’t want to talk to you?”
She shakes her head, much to my dismay. “Asking for you in particular. Got your last name and everything. Maybe someone you know who happened to recognize your truck?”
Knowing just how much I keep to myself, it’s more than doubtful.
Folding up the printed label and tucking it away, I postpone our stroll and make my way back out toward the front.
The air punches out of me the moment I lay my eyes on a woman sitting by herself at the bar.
Getting a little woozy, I’m wiping my hands off on the back of my jeans. Am I nervous? Not in theavoid all peoplekind of way, but… something else.
Kelsie runs straight into me, stumbling to look around my body to see what has caught my attention. “She’s the one asking for you.”
There’s no way. I’d know a face like hers.
This woman looks… soft. Everywhere. The word plump does a disservice to the reality of her. She’s all generous curves, a warm presence that seems to draw the flickering golden light from the bar’s lights and hold it close.
A thick sweater, the color of pine needles, hugs her frame, disappointingly hidden behind the bar, and I have the utterly insane, immediate thought of circling her so I can get a view of the whole picture. My fingers twitch, already pretending to know the softness of that top.
Her hair is a tumble of dark chestnut curls, escaping a loose braid to frame a face with cheeks rounded like ripe apples. And her eyes… In this light, they’re pure, liquid honey, pools of warmth fixed on me with an openness that makes my skin feel two sizes too small.
She’s noticed me, too.
It’s too late to flatten my hand down the front of my shirt to hide any wrinkles or suck in the small round of my stomach. As if someone like her would notice me in the first place, not without wanting something.
For a minute, it feels like everything freezes over as we look at each other. Nothing else in this room matters.
The only thing that distracts me is the start of what I feel manifesting in my stomach. It’s a hunger I’ve never known.
It startles me, the ferocity of it. It’s not just a stir in my blood. It’s a deep, yawning emptiness I thought I’d packed away withthe failures of three polite, careful women who never once made my hands feel this clumsy, my throat this dry.
I’ve kept myself away from people for good reason. I know how to act. But my body is reacting in ways that I don’t understand. The heat growing against my skin isn’t from being around a stranger, but a silent demand to find out who she is.
“Gavin Little?” Her voice is higher-pitched, reminding me of the song birds up on the mountain. While my brows bunch together in confusion, hers shoot up in surprise as she tilts her head back. “Wow, you are anything but, huh?”
She leans in, and a hint of cinnamon and cold winter air wraps around me. That simple movement, the reduction of space between us, causes the heat to seep lower, tightening my gut and making my fingers curl against the bar top as I eliminate the space between us.
Confirming that we don’t know each other, there’s an invisible pull demanding I find out everything I can about her. So powerful that it leaves me dizzy, it’s a miracle I don’t crash into the other side of the bartop in front of my employees.
