‘Agreed,’ said Hazel, coming up on her toes to kiss Noah’s cheek.
‘Thanks for opening it up early,’ Elliot said.
‘Of course. Let me know if she needs anything. Fresh towels, more coffee, a fishing buddy. Anything. We aim to please.’ Noah grinned.
Elliot laughed and nodded in thanks, and the conversation petered out. Or at least paused for enough seconds to give Daisy a chance to tug on Elliot’s arm and ask him to walk her home. They needed to talk and get their stories straight before they spent any more time with other people.
By the time they were alone on Main Street, away from the milling crowd in front of the town hall, Daisy could breathe a sigh of relief.
Which she did, and then immediately turned and whacked Elliot on the arm. ‘What the hell was that?!’
He looked back at her, shocked and rubbing his arm. ‘What was what?’
‘That little display at the meeting! You told the whole town we’re together! Are you insane?’
‘You just thanked me for rescuing you!’
Daisy threw up her hands in frustration. ‘That’s because we were in front of people!’
‘Look… I… I just thought…’
‘You thought what?’ she hissed, walking off again. Elliot followed, his long strides quickly catching up to hers. ‘You thought you would just decide that we should be together? Just like that?’
‘Not… I mean… not for real…’
When she glanced at him again, he looked truly stricken. And she almost felt bad about that. Almost.
‘I know you’re not from around here, but these people are crazy and now they all think we’re together and…’ Daisy groaned loud enough to elicit another startled look from Elliot.
‘I thought it would help,’ he said. ‘I thought it would help get everyone off your back. It felt right at the time. I thought we had an understanding, but you can feel free to fake break up with me. If you want.’
She stopped. He looked so damn sincere.
‘We can’t just break up now! That will only add more evidence to the growing pile that I am cursed in all things love.’ Shit. She hadn’t even really considered that. Elliot had backed her into a corner.
He winced. ‘But you would be the one doing the breaking up this time. Maybe that would be okay?’
‘No, Elliot. None of this is okay.’ Her business was floundering, she had two failed relationships under her belt—and now she was trapped in afakerelationship. How does that even happen?
‘Then let me help you,’ Elliot said from behind her. She’d taken off walking again, but Elliot was keeping up. Unfortunately. ‘Let me help you show the town you are perfectly capable of being in… love.’
Daisy stopped short, and Elliot nearly ran into her, skidding to a stop and narrowly avoiding her body. She looked up at him, feeling sad in entirely new ways. She didn’t want to fake a break-up with Elliot. He was already feeling like a kindred spirit, a fellow broken-hearted soul. Even if his current move had complicated things for her.
‘But I’mnotperfectly capable of being in love.’
‘Me, neither,’ he said with a shrug like it was a small thing to be broken in this way. ‘That’s the fake part.’
Daisy blew out a long sigh, considering her options.
She could leave town but there was the pesky problem of having nowhere to go. And that she actually liked it here.
She could tell everyone to go to hell and make funeral wreaths, exclusively, for the rest of her life.
Or…
‘This might work,’ she said, and Elliot’s mouth hitched up in one corner like this pleased him, just a little. ‘If people see that I’m able to have a functioning relationship, maybe they’ll get this whole curse idea out of their head.’
‘Right, and after spending an afternoon with my mother fretting over my lack of social life, I think this could help me, too.’
