“We did!” Emma exclaims, wiping at the flour on her shirt. “I kinda made a mess, and the first batch burned, but this one is perfect. Do you like it, Momma?”
She pulls her daughter into a hug that turns into a squeeze, breathing her in like an anchor. “I do, baby, thank you. Now take your seat and dig in. We have to share them.”
Her eyes don’t leave Wyatt the entire time, not even when he breaks their contact to look away, perhaps embarrassed by the way her gaze has begun to shine as she steps closer to him. “How did you learn to bake these?”
He nods toward the open cookbook on the counter, pages smudged with flour. “The library has everything. The icing isfrom a can, and I might have pocketed some cinnamon a while ago. Just in case.”
Just in case he found the right moment to make one of her most coveted dreams come to life.
That spark of happiness she thought she couldn’t harness anymore blazes like fire in her chest, warming it with her affection for him, and in a split-second choice, before fear can stop her, she leans up on her toes and presses her lips to his cheek in a soft kiss that lingers longer than it should. She would rather aim for his lips, feeling her skin flush hot at the realization, right around the same time she pulls back to find his own neck turning pink.
“Thank you, Wyatt.”
They share a loaded look between charged air that crackles like fireworks, both of them standing too close and not close enough, before she forces herself away to sit at the table. Kissing him should be the last thing on her mind, and yet here she is, heart racing, fantasizing about how he might taste or how he might feel. If he would be sweet to her, or if that dangerous streak she saw in him the day they met would show itself again. It’s a daydream that she indulges in while allowing herself a different pleasure, filled with gooey sugar and thick cinnamon.
“You were right. It’s so much better than a gas station honey bun,” she says around a sweet mouthful.
Her favorite domestic moment from her favorite movie has come true right before her eyes, courtesy of the man who she once thought herself trapped with. Funny how things change, she thinks, sneaking a glance his way as he ducks his head with a shy smile, pretending very hard not to watch her enjoy something he made just for her.
Chapter 16
They’re tending to the animals at the other farm when the illusion of happiness he’s felt creep up around him begins to shatter.
The air smells like hay and cold earth, sharp with the coming turn of the season. The animals are restless in a way that mirrors the tight coil of tension in Wyatt’s chest. It’s a low hum of unease that only increases his anxiety.
It’s been easy to forget certain things over the last few weeks. To ignore the inevitable and pretend he could start fresh here with Addison. Perhaps even cultivate something close to happiness. He’s been careful not to let his imagination run wild with best-case scenarios, though a few have woven themselves into whatever mental level sits just above the subconscious, but below a daydream. Small, harmless things. The way her laughter might sound when she’s just slightly tipsy. The three of them looting shops in town like a well-oiled team. A future he never planned for, taking shape without his permission.
Over the last few weeks, his attraction to her has flourished despite his insistence that they’re only friends.
Friends don’t cuddle in bed and hold each other after a nightmare.
Friends don’t inhale each other’s scent the way he caught himself doing when she was wrapped up in his arms the other night, breathing her in.
They certainly don’t call each other sweetheart without the sting of the usual annoyance or tease.
Keeping everyone at a distance has been his chosen path since the virus hit, maybe even before, and for good reason. He holds enough guilt and shame from past relationships and responsibilities to last a lifetime…and yet he made her cinnamon rolls in an effort to see her smile. He is so fucked. It took every ounce of his willpower not to turn his head and capture her lips when she pressed hers to his cheek.
The ghost of that almost-kiss still lingers, hovering just out of reach, taunting him with what he wants and what he’s already ruined.
He didn’t chase her mouth because if she wanted to kiss him like that, she would have. He won’t be presumptuous about such things. But he wanted it so badly his nerves clustered up in his belly like he was about to nose-dive off the tallest cliff, waiting for a jump that never happened.
Yes, it has been simple to forget that everything they’ve built is crafted on a pile of lies as he’s become reluctantly smitten with her, but that all changes when Emma unearths a box of old photographs in the barn. Dust clings to the edges of the cardboard like it’s been waiting to be disturbed for decades.
She brings them out to show her mother, and Addison picks up a weathered photo, her gentle smile accompanying a question that stops him in his tracks.
“Is this you when you were little? With your grandparents?”
Wyatt drops the feed scoop back into the bin and takes the offered picture as his gut sinks. There’s a little boy playing in the garden with a fistful of tomatoes while his grandparents laugh.Addison assumes it must be him, her expression so open and hopeful that he might share some long-lost memory with her.
Little does she know that nothing he could share started here.
The lie stretches between them, like a thin sheet of ice, threatening to snap under the weight of her kindness.
He stares at the image, the top of the paper shaking ever so slightly as he realizes that he can’t go another day allowing her to believe anything but the truth. He owed her nothing back when he first crafted this tale about the house belonging to him. Everyone lies now. Everyone steals. Everyone kills. It is the way of what’s left of the world, so it was barely a blip on his moral radar to let her think he truly laid claim to this place. Easier than arguing over it when he planned to leave shortly after, anyway.
That was before he started to fall for her. Before both of them began to weave their way into his heart.
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about it,” she continues, after he’s taken too long to reply. “You don’t have to dig up any memories for us.”
