She gave a nod. “I think I know how the house—”
J.P.’s phone cut them off, a loud ring that he had cranked to full volume to hear over his power tools. Nora nearly lifted off the ground from the jarring trill.
He fished his cell out of his pocket and raised it to eye level, then flashed Nora the screen. “Miles. I should probably take this.”
Her head did that mechanical nod again, and she reached out for J.P.’s hand to give it a little goodbye squeeze. He just smiled and answered the call, but his gaze followed Nora until she had sealed herself inside her vehicle, doors closed around her. He knew she didn’t want J.P. to witness the shudder of emotion she released when her hands lifted and smothered her face, and it took everything in him to keep from racing over to her to see what was wrong.
He hurried to end the call, hoping to catch Nora before she regained her composure and pulled out of the lot, but all that was left was a rooster tail of dirt that plumed from her tires as she sped away, leaving J.P. in a dust storm of worry, wonder, and absolute confusion.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was definitely his apartment. She knew it now. Those little hints from earlier were like flashing signs, pieces of J.P. evidenced all throughout his home.
More than ever before, it felt like an invasion for Nora to be there.
She had wanted to come clean with him yesterday, but she kept getting cut off at every turn. And she didn’t know how to just come out with it. How to push through the apprehension and spill the truth.
“J.P., I’m the reason the Callahan house burnt down and why you’ll be out of work for the foreseeable future. It’s all my fault.”
She could put it into words in her head, but her mouth dammed everything up, denying permission for the truth to spill out.
Things with J.P. were fragile, this thin line they had only recently figured out to tightrope walk. Anything could push them right off the edge, and she had a sneaking suspicion admitting her guilt was enough to do that. Enough to send them tumbling into contention again.
But Nora wasn’t comfortable lying. Even now, she had a terrible time tricking herself into believing it was okay to keep this from him much longer. The guilt of omission sat heavily upon her conscience, pressing down to the point where she couldn’t think about anything but her part in the fire.
She cleaned his apartment in record time, still with the same diligent attention to detail. She just needed to get out of there. One more second and she would lose it. She couldn’t stand there in the middle of his living room and pretend what she’d done was okay. That what she wasdoingwas okay. She’d gone a full twenty-four hours without admitting to her blame and it was like a poison coursing through her veins, making her sick with each pump.
She crossed the room and yanked open the junk drawer. A pen and pad of paper rested right on top, as though nudging her to do the right thing with their easy access.
Her hands shook. Her palms were sweating. But most of all, her heart hurt, knowing this might be the end of such a short—and such a surprising—relationship.
The truth quickly left her as ink and cursive, and she read it over three times before folding it in half and placing the tented notepaper in the middle of J.P.’s coffee table.
She glanced around the apartment to memorize the spaces where J.P. lived out his daily life. She knew she wouldn’t be a part of it anymore. Goodness, she didn’t even think she would be able to clean it again if Pearl ever asked her to. She just couldn’t be this close to him.
And there was the very real possibility that this space wouldn’t even belong to J.P. for long. If he couldn’t find supplemental work in Harmony Ridge, he’d have to travel elsewhere to seek employment.
It seemed impossible that life could hinge on a single moment in time like this. One mistake could alter the trajectory of someone’s future. One instant could flip everything on its head.
Nora had been careless with her actions—and maybe even with her heart—and she would make certain to never be that reckless again.
Tillie and Aprilinvited Nora to dinner that Sunday evening, but she politely declined, offering up some flimsy excuse about leftovers in the fridge that needed to be eaten before they went bad. She knew her friends could see right through her, but they let her be and gave her the space she didn’t have the courage to ask for.
Even Rosie suspected something was off. The cat was normally aloof, but tonight Rosie switched between curling up in Nora’s lap when she sat or threading through Nora’s legs when she paced the length of the farmhouse. The attentive feline wouldn’t leave Nora’s side.
The other thing that didn’t leave Nora’s side—or rather, her palm—was her cell phone.
She waited for J.P. to discover the note and call. She didn’t know his schedule, but figured he had to be home by now. The sun was down, the hours of light spent for that day. Even if J.P. had been working on whatever she’d interrupted the day before, it was too dark for construction now.
Was he going to just ignore her confession? Or had it thrown him so completely off that he couldn’t think of an appropriate response?
Or was it something bigger? That was her great fear, that he had read her note and now wished to have nothing to do with her.
J.P. had never liked her bees to begin with. While he said he had warmed up to them—even did research about them on his own time—this would provide all the reason necessary to revert to his initial feelings about beekeeping in general, and Nora in particular.
She had nearly given up hope for any communication that night when the light from two round beams suddenly brightened the wall, moving as a pair as a vehicle pulled into her driveway. The lights flickered off along with the humming engine.
Nora hadn’t been brave enough for a face-to-face with J.P. yet. She had tried that in the garden and failed spectacularly.
