Jenny’s face brightens for the first time since she came padding down the front steps in a pair of bright blue slippers. “Oh! I could use the phone tree.” Her face collapses into a frown almost as quickly. “Shoot. But we’re not allowed to use it past seven unless it’s a true emergency.”
“You have a phone tree?”
She waves her hand above her, like she’s calling upon the spirits to explain the mysticism of it all. “It’s how we communicate across the town when there’s news. I could use it to figure out if anyone has a place for you to stay.”
“But you can’t use it past seven?”
She shakes her head sadly. “There has been some … abuse of the system lately. Gus did a town-wide call last Tuesday at 10 pm to ask if anyone had extra tortillas to spare for taco night at the firehouse. The Sheriff almost disbanded the entire system. It was only on account of Caleb stepping in with the curfew rule that the phone tree was salvaged.”
“Uh, thank goodness.” From the gravity of her tone, it seems like the right response.
She nods. “I’ll use it in the morning, do some digging for you. In the meantime, I think you might find some spare room at Lovelight Farms.” I’m not sure, but it looks like a smile curls at the edge of her lips. A thoughtful look knits her brows together. “It used to be a hunting retreat, I think.”
I remember Stella saying something about that the last time I was in town. I also remember her little cottage at the edge of the pumpkin patch, filled to the brim with various odds and ends. At one point, Luka stood in her kitchen with his arms outstretched. He could touch one of the windows and the entry hallway at the same time. I don’t want to show up on her doorstep in the middle of the night and ask if I can crash. Especially if she already has Luka there.
“Thanks for that,” I say. I have absolutely no intention of driving up to Lovelight tonight. Not until I have a shower, a fresh coat of lipstick, and a serious pep talk. I’m not anxious to see Beckett again, I’m just—
I don’t want him to see me and think I’m—that I’m asking for anything. I didn’t come here for him.
I came here for his fields. I want to sit in the tall grass and stare up at the sky and try to find the place within myself that's locked up or rusted over or whatever the hell that's been going on with me lately. I want to fix it. I’m tired of feeling like this.
I came here for a break. I want to sit in the quiet and do nothing. I have seventeen emails in my inbox from right before I left—courtesy of Sway—and I haven't looked at a single one. Anxiety grabs me by the throat every single time I see the little red number on my screen. I turned my phone off the third time I reached for it and buried it at the bottom of my bag. Maybe I’ll get a burner while I’m here. Really lean into the whole off the radar thing.
I thank Jenny for her time and assure her another four times that everything is fine before slipping out the front door and down the marble steps to my rental parked at the curb. A gust of wind lifts my ponytail and the edge of my coat, bringing with it hints of honeysuckle and jasmine from the flowers twisted around the light pole. I eyeball the back seat as I stand at the driver’s side door.
I’ve slept in my car before—during long road trips and last-minute ones. Once when I was driving through Colorado, my rental car kicked it in the higher altitudes and I had to push it halfway off the road and wait until morning when it was safe for a tow to come and get me. I had slept fine in the backseat, only slightly terrified a bear was going to come careening through the windshield.
I’ll have to find somewhere slightly private. Somewhere Jenny won’t see me. Or the Sheriff. Or anyone who might call the Sheriff. I don’t exactly want to start my trip here with the town gossip mill rolling about Evelyn St. James sleeping in the backseat of her car.
I also don’t want a picture of me going viral, curled up in the back and using my sweater as a blanket.
I bite at my bottom lip. Maybe not such a great idea after all.
I’m still debating my choices when I hear footsteps on the pavement across the street. I glance up at the same moment Beckett glances across, and it’s just like that night in the bar, when he elbowed his way through the front door and looked right at me, those damn eyes of his sweeping across my face and down my shoulders. A glance like a touch, a fingertip at the hollow of my throat.
He’s frozen across the street, half on the curb and half off of it. Corduroy jacket. Open flannel beneath. Dark jeans and heavy work boots. He has a box from Ms. Beatrice’s bakery in his left hand, plain white with a thin piece of string in a pretty little bow on top. I focus there instead of his face, and watch as his hand tightens around the box.
I could laugh. He looks like every decadent thing I’ve ever indulged in. Flannel and scruff and a box of baked goods in his hand.
It makes sense that I’d run into him like this—an abandoned street with just us and the flower petals, my back breaking under the strain of all my exhaustion. It’s like this with Beckett and I, I’m starting to figure out. We keep hurtling into each other.
“Don’t tell Layla,” is the first thing he says to me. His voice is a low rumble, as rough as I remember. I bite my lip against a smile and his eyes roll up to the sky like he’s frustrated with himself before slanting them right back to me. He steps the rest of the way off the curb and strolls across the street.
I look at the box in his hand. “Only if you share.”
He huffs and clutches the box tighter. “I don’t think so.”
“You are not in a position to negotiate.”
“We’ll see.”
I press up on my tiptoes and try to get a peek through the thin plastic on top. “What does Ms. Beatrice make better than Layla anyway?”
He looks supremely uncomfortable at being caught. Or maybe that’s just the surprise of seeing his one-night-stand suddenly appear, again, in the place he lives. I wince.
“Sorry, never mind.” I rub at the headache that’s starting to form between my eyebrows. “Listen, I should have—“
“Shortbread cookies,” he tells me. He stops about three feet away from me and studies my rental. His eyes dart over my shoulder to the bed and breakfast, and then back to the car. He zeroes in on me with that singular intensity he always seems to carry, whether he’s licking a line of salt from my wrist or changing the tire on a tractor.
I swallow hard. Neither of those imagining help with the sharp pulse of heat low in my belly, a single forceful beat.
Beckett looks good.
He’s always looked good.
“She’s been making them for me since I was a kid. Layla’s don’t come close.” His eyes narrow into slits. “If you tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.”
I give him a solemn nod while fighting my grin. “Alright.”
He nods. “Good.” He considers my car again. I wonder if Jenny is watching from behind her desk and if this constitutes a phone tree emergency. I saw how this town handled Stella and Luka together. I’d bet this rental car they were the subject of several phone tree discussions. Beckett raps his knuckles once against the hatchback. “You’re in town?”