Luke didn’t say anything.
“It’s just… too much. Too soon.”
He turned to her, stricken. “Leah, that’s not why I brought you there.”
“I know that,” she told him. Luke had been nothing but a gentleman. “I’m the one who should be sorry if I gave you the wrong idea. You’ve been nothing but a good friend.”
She could see how the word hit him right in the middle, but it needed to be said. Despite his sweet gestures and good looks and the million little things Luke Nickerson had done right since the day he walked through her shop door, Leah needed to remind them both of the friendship. Because the truth was she’d felt something on the beach tonight that she’d not felt in a really long time. Maybe not ever. And it scared her to death.
Luke was looking at her the same way he had after they’d stopped kissing, like he didn’t understand how they got here. How badly she wanted to tell him she didn’t, either.
“Good night, Leah.”
When his truck pulled away, Leah did not watch him go.Instead she looked up at the handmade sign hanging over her shop’s door. At the steps he’d shorn up. His hands were all over her new start. Luke Nickerson probably didn’t understand what happened tonight; she didn’t expect him to. She needed his help with the old house. But shoring up her life was on her. And it was something she needed to do on her own.
