This forces my gaze up to meet his and I find his brow knit with his hallmark severe Grant expression. He’s got the crown of his sheriff’s hat in his fingers at one side and he brushes his hair with the opposite hand, almost like he cares what it looks like after being flattened down by the hat.
What kind of man is he?
Evie said he’s a good man. I’ve seen some proof of that.But every time I think I understand him, like I’ve got him nailed down, he shucks another layer and I’m left with something more. Complex.
Frustratingly alluring, given the amount of upheaval he also ignites in me.
But he’s here, literally hat in hand, and I can appreciate it.
“Water under the bridge. Truly.” And now I’m ready to go, so I hold up the shopping bags and tip my head to the side. I’m not sure it communicates exactly what I mean, but I don’t know what else to say.
Or, rather, I don’t know how to navigate a person like this, who seems to want so little to do with me but is essentially forced to interact with me. I’m not entirely unused to being seen as a burden, but I can often overcome that. I used to be a pretty sunshiny personality as people go, and I wanted people to like me. Maybe it’s pathetic, but I wish I could go back to feeling impervious to bad moods. Now they feel like ill portents—they’re clues I could miss if I let down my guard. So I don’t.
But after what feels like far longer than a year of not having anyone and working myself to exhaustion more often than not, part of what I want here is a fresh start. It’s the whole reason I came. And the more time I spend, the more I suspect that part of what I want is friendship, a sense of community, and yeah, I want the residents of my new town to like me.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to simply ask if we can be friends. Maybe it’ll defuse this weird energy between us. Maybe we’ll be borrowing cups of sugar from each other immediately once we do.
He’s still scowling when he declares, “I’ll be home at five on Friday. We’ll leave byfive thirty.”
It’s that same bossy, “let me tell you how this is gonna go” voice that makes my jaw clench and the part of me that fought to get here and away from someone who wanted to control everything in my life go on alert. It’s not the same, and logically I know that, but my gut response is an instant no. No man is bossing me around again.
My chin dips to acknowledge his words, and he does the same as I take steps backward toward the garage. Something makes me want to keep facing him, to keep taking him in, even though I’m frustrated that he made the effort to apologize to me and then tore up all the nice work by barking out orders again.
A minute later, I’m in my little apartment, doors shut and locked, and I watch him from the window that faces his house at the side of the garage. He wanders slowly back toward his house, glancing over his shoulder at the garage, and my stomach drops when his gaze reaches the window.
Our eyes meet, and I swear I can see that stunning blue color from all the way over here. He’s still not wearing his hat, but he’s still in uniform, and with a little distance, I can’t pretend it’s not an excellent view. A man like this? Too beautiful for his own good and looking at me like that?
I’m certain I’ve never felt this pull toward someone—not ever. And it has every instinct urging me to step away, but every stubborn, wanting little voice shouting I won’t be the one to break. For starters, I certainly won’t be the one to cave to his orders when he barks them.
After a beat, he turns and goes inside.
And for a dozen reasons, I know I won’t be here at five thirty on Friday.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grant
We pull up to the farmhouse and I am trying not to be irritated.
This has become my state of being more than I’d like to admit, but I waited for ten minutes outside Sam’s place, rang her doorbell, and even attempted to text the number on the rental application May gave me, but no luck. So Lily, Poppy, and I are rolling into Friday family dinner exactly on time instead of ten minutes early, which for my little minions means we’re already late.
“Do you think Gram saved the table for me?” Lil asks, anxiety in her words.
The beauty of a Friday night dinner is that I never have to accept a social invite because I have standing Friday night plans.
The sincere drawback is that the girls are absolute toast by the end of the week, and usually, so am I. We drag in formy family’s TLC, and then I haul us home and dump everyone, including myself, into bed, some weeks all of us on the verge of tears.
It can be brutal to have one more thing to plan for, then manage, thendo, but it usually reminds me this is what we didn’t have in North Carolina. This is part of why we moved home.
This is what I owe them. This is what I almost didn’t give them.
So we’re here, no matter what.
“Why was the lady not there? Will Gram and Gramps be mad?”
Poppy’s voice is on the edge of crying, and I say a fleeting prayer for patience because all of this could’ve been avoided if she’d done what she said she’d do.
It’s a pet peeve of mine, but is it so hard to simply be where you know you’re supposed to be? Do what you say you’ll do? Follow-through is a skill some people don’t possess, I guess.
