“You can open your eyes,” he instructed quietly. He would turn her around at the last minute to finally glimpse the booth, but there were a few things he hoped to say first.
But those words didn’t have the chance to make their way into the world. As soon as her eyes fluttered open, Nora gasped.
“J.P.!” Her hand smothered her mouth in a slap. “J.P., please tell me that’s what I think it is!”
He tried to latch on to her gaze, tried his best to track her focus. But when he looked out from her vantage point, all he could see were rows of dense zucchini plants, ripe, red tomatoes in tall cages, and the rescued beehive just off to the side of the burgeoning garden.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” he admitted warily.
“Please tell me that’s mine.”
“Tell you what’s yours?”
She burst forward around the green planter boxes, almost tripping in her haste. Bounding toward the beehive, she dropped to the ground, despite the clods of dirt that soiled her canary yellow dress at the knees. Her hands clasped onto the smoker resting there.
“Is this mine?”
He couldn’t make sense of the tears that rolled down her ruddy face. On instinct, he thumbed them away, then cupped her jaw in his hands to draw her eyes up to meet his. “Nora, what are you talking about?”
“This is my smoker, isn’t it?” She turned the implement over in her hands. When her finger traced over her initials scratched into the bottom of the tool, she collapsed against J.P.’s chest.
“I didn’t realize you would miss it so much,” he apologized as he bound her closer, arms wrapping around her trembling body. “This was still in my truck from when we got the bees out of the Callahan property. I told my mom it was okay to borrow it for now while she learned to care for the hives, but you can have it back. I’ll get her another.”
The tears that had skated down her cheeks were a waterfall of emotion now, affecting every portion of Nora’s body. She shuddered against him, wracked with sobs that he couldn’t make any sense of.
“J.P., I thought I’d left this in the house.” She pulled out of his embrace and sat back on her haunches to peer into his eyes. Mascara smudged beneath her long, feathery lashes, but it didn’t mar her beauty. She was still breathtaking, but J.P. found it difficult to breathe for an entirely new reason.
“Oh, Nora…did you think—?”
“That I was responsible for the fire?” She hiccupped. “I did. J.P., I don’t remember taking this out of the house.”
“Because you didn’t. I went back in to secure the place before we left and I saw it sitting in the corner of the room. I tossed it into the bed of the truck after you were already buckled up.” He lifted a finger to swipe another tear away. “I’m so sorry, Nora. I should have told you I had it. It never occurred to me that you would think you were to blame for what happened at the Callahan’s place.”
“That’s the whole reason I’ve been trying to contact you this week. I even left you a letter.”
J.P.’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t get a letter.”
“I know. I was cleaning your place and wrote out the whole confession. I left it on your coffee table, but your mom intercepted it before you had the chance to discover it.” She gave a wet sniff. “Actually, Waylon got to it first, then your mom.”
J.P. sat back onto the hard dirt, crossing his legs beneath him. “Why wouldn’t my mom want you to tell me?”
“Shedidwant me to tell you. Just not in a note. She said you deserved to be told in person. I agree with that now.”
Well, that certainly sounded like his mother.
“So you’ve been harboring that guilt all of this time while I’ve been putting you off?”
Her head trembled in a nod. “Your mom told me about the hardships you’ve been through with your business over the years. The struggle it’s been to restore your reputation. Then to have this fire happen.” The nodding shifted into head shaking. “J.P., I couldn’t let you think you were to blame. Not when there was a very good chance it was entirely my fault to begin with. I know others have thrown you under the bus in the past, but that’s not something I was willing to let happen again.”
“Nora…” He gazed into her watery eyes, his own suddenly choosing to mimic her tear-filled ones. He blinked hard to keep the emotion tucked behind his lids. “I am so, so sorry you had to hold on to this unnecessary guilt for the last week. Especially when I had what it took to remedy the situation all along.” He lifted the smoker between them. “And I wasn’t ignoring you because I didn’t want to talk to you,” he continued. “I was working on something. And I knew if I saw you, I wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret.”
“So, this isn’t the surprise?” Her eyes dropped to the beekeeping instrument.
He placed the smoker back onto a cinderblock near the hive. “Definitely not.”
Drawing back, J.P. rose to his feet, then offered a hand to help Nora get to hers. She was tear-stained and dirt-dusted, but he’d never seen her more beautiful. Her vulnerability, her compassion, and her desire to right her wrongs—even when they weren’t hers to own—was not only commendable, but utterly attractive.
He pulled her closer, their bodies flush, and walked his fingers slowly up her spine to cradle the back of her head in his hand. A lock of honey-colored hair clumped to her wet cheek, and he slid it behind her ear, his palm returning to her jaw to cup her beautiful face. Their mouths hovered close for a breath before J.P. finally gave in to the true longing of his heart and pressed his lips to hers.
