Page 5 of Fall Into Love

Or somebody who wanted to rattle me, not rob me.

Somebody who knew that taking the pretty, worthless things would land harder than taking the money. Somebody who spent two years learning which small cuts hurt the deepest.

But could he have done this? Would he…?

“You all right there, Emma? You just went white as a sheet.”

I shake my head, wanting to rid myself of any thoughts about that jerk. But it’s hard. “It’s…nothing.”

He doesn’t push, which surprises me given his earlier ‘nosey neighbor’ comment. He leans a hip against the counter and waits, patient as anything, giving me all the room in the world, and I hate that it makes me want to tell him the truth…

“My ex,” I sigh. “Derek. We split about a year ago. He, um, well…” I stop, hunting for the version that doesn’t make me sound pathetic. “I was supposed to help fund his startup, and instead I signed the lease on this place, and that was the end of us. He took my car and left.” I laugh awkwardly. It really does sound ridiculous when I say it out loud. “I let him, I mean. I didn’t want to fight; I just wanted him gone.”

Caleb is very still. When I risk a look at his face, the easy golden-retriever thing is nowhere to be found. There’s something underneath it, however, quiet and a little dangerous. “And you think he did this.”

“I don’t know for sure.” I bite my lip, looking everywhere but directly at him. “I’m just so used to bracing for him that I see his usual motives everywhere. But he’s three hours away now. He’s got a whole life as far as I understand it. So, it’s probably nothing.” I gesture weakly around us. “But I just…”

“Hey.” He shifts closer, his voice low and steady. “You’re not crazy, and you’re allowed to be spooked, okay?”

I nod, wanting to believe him.

“But I’m gonna say the other thing, too,” he goes on, “Rhinestones and mints and a ten-inch window don’t exactly scream jilted fuck boy drove three hours in the night to screw with his ex. Whatever this is, we don’t know yet. So let’s not hand him the win of being scared, all right?”

We. There it is again. Him being here loosens something in my chest that’s been clenched since I opened the door this morning. Which is exactly the problem, isn’t it? I finally build one thing that’s only mine, and the second it wobbles, I’m leaning on the nearest kind shoulder.

I straighten up and step back into my own space. “I’ve got it from here,” I say. “Really. You’ve done so much already, and you’ve got a whole town to oversee.”

For a second I think he’ll argue, until he nods. “Yeah, I do. Speaking of…the Fall Festival’s two weeks out.” A crooked grin. “We were hoping to have the local shops set up small booths again this year, were you interested?”

Two weeks. The festival. On top of everything else, I’d forgotten. It’s the biggest weekend of the season, the one that carries half the local shops through the chilly winter.

“Um, yes, I’d love to, but…I need to find someone who can either be here or running the booth,” I say faintly, reminded once again that I’m a one-woman show.

The bell chimes with Molly’s return with a second round of coffee and a paper bag that smells like apples and cinnamon.

Caleb takes that as his cue. He shrugs his jacket back on, and I hate how I’ve suddenly gotten the urge to ask him to stay. You can’t say you got this, then beg him to stay.

“I’m two minutes up the block,” he tells me. “If you see or hear anything, I don’t care about the hour, you call me, not Dale, all right?”

I smile, boldly teasing, “Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor.”

“Not mayoring.” He grins. “Nosey neighbor only, remember?”

And then he’s gone, the Harley grumbling to life at the curb, and Molly’s looking at me over the coffee cups with both eyebrows in her hairline. “So,” she says.

I snatch a fresh coffee from the tray in her hand. “Not now.”

She scoffs, beaming. “I didn’t say anything!”

“And you don’t need to,” I warn. I drink my coffee and finish the inventory while trying very hard not to think about the way he said I don’t care about the hour, you call me. Him. As if I’d offend him if I dared to call anyone else.

It’s nearly dark by the time I lock up with the new deadbolt, courtesy of the hardware store down the street. I jiggle the knob twice because my anxiety still demands proof, and walk the six blocks home to Ivory Heights. Danny, my landlord, has already got cornstalks lashed to the lobby columns and a bucket of tiny pumpkins by the mailboxes with each tenant’s name on them.

He catches me at the elevator with a plate of something in his hand and a worried expression on his face that tells me the whole building—the whole town already knows about my nightmare of a morning.

“Emma, my dear.” He presses the plate into my hands. Warm, homemade banana bread. “I heard. If you need anything, day or night, you come find me. Anything at all.”

I promise him I will, but I’m not sure I mean it, because admitting I need help is something I’m trying to avoid. But Danny has always been kind and caring like this, and I tell him so as I take the banana bread up to my quiet fourth-floor apartment.