‘Is that what you’ve been doing? We text every day.’
‘In person, I mean.’
‘Right. I did think it was odd that you had three hair appointments in one week.’
‘It’s worse than that.’ Daisy took a deep breath before confessing. ‘You get coffee at eight so I don’t go into the café until nine. Tuesday when you came into the shop, I ran out the back door and hid in the alley until you left. I skipped the town meeting on Thursday even though the book club was presenting their summer reading list, which I never miss.’
Hurt flickered in his eyes. ‘It’s nice to know I wasn’t imagining it, I guess.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s really not.’
Color rose in his cheeks, and he looked like he wanted to say one thing and instead said another. ‘We weren’t really together,’ he said and why did hearing that hurt so damn much? ‘You don’t owe me an explanation.’
‘But we’re friends.’ Weren’t they? Had she ruined it all? ‘I mean, I want to be friends and that was a really shitty thing to do to a friend.’
‘I agree.’
Daisy winced. ‘I’m sorry.’
Elliot blew out a long sigh. ‘You could have just told me.’
‘I know.’
‘I was trying to give you space. I was trying to be respectful.’
‘I appreciate that, I just?—’
‘You just what, Daisy?’ The question was clipped, his voice verging on anger. She’d never heard him like that before. ‘You just what? I’d love to know because it was really damn hard not seeing you for two weeks.’
‘It was?’
He scoffed. ‘Of course it was.’
Daisy bit down on a smile. ‘Oh.’
He looked up and caught her smiling. ‘That makes you happy?’
‘A little.’
He shook his head, his lips tipping into a rueful smile of his own. ‘I hated not seeing you. A few texts a day was not enough, Daisy. I hated it but I was trying not to…’
‘Not to what?’
‘Scare you away.’
‘Everything about this scares me,’ she confessed, her voice barely a whisper in the quiet library.
Elliot’s gaze was gentle when it met hers again. ‘I know. So, what happened? Why were you diving behind trash cans to avoid seeing me?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
He laughed. ‘Practically.’
‘I don’t know. After Beltane, I panicked…’
