I sat in that chair and watched it all, my emotions swinging wildly between one extreme and the next. At the end, I sat back in the chair, tears streaming down my face as I swallowed back laughter.
Then, fingers shaking, I started the video over, needing to hear him say it again. I’m in love with Haven Torres. Deeply, miserably, completely in love with her.
And what he’d done to back up those words. He’d put everything on the line…for us. No one had ever done that. No one.
I stood, flinging the door open. Betty, Burt, Cricket, and Easton were all waiting outside. “Oh my God.” There didn’t seem anything else to say.
“We thought you’d say that,” Betty said, her smile as soft and gentle as her heart.
Oh my God.
“The town’s still talking about it,” Cricket remarked. “I imagine they’ll be talking about it for a long time to come. Most people didn’t go home until the wee hours of the morning. From what we hear, families were reunited, friendships reconciled, consciences cleared, forgiveness and repentance spread far and wide. Pelion is a more beautiful place this morning.” Betty smiled. “Cricket and I were even invited to join the community relations group. It’s been renamed the Bob Smitherman Citizen Outreach Council. Of course, its mission has been drastically…oh…oh…”
“Altered,” Burt said.
“Yes. Yes, it has. Drastically,” she emphasized.
Bob Smitherman…the dead cat. I recalled what I had just watched Cricket confess at the meeting. Poor Bob Smitherman. And poor Betty. Poor Cricket. I gave my head a small shake. But all that…that was going to have to wait until later. “I…I don’t know what to say.”
There was a lot to say.
“I don’t reckon this is the time for talking. At least not to us,” Burt said.
Right. No, probably not. My head whirled. “I have to go,” I said.
“I’d say.” Cricket smiled.
“I’ll keep your rooms available, dear!” Betty called as I rushed past them, grabbing my keys on a hook by the front door and throwing it open.
Gage stood outside, leaning against his red sportscar, his face breaking wide in a smile when he saw me. I halted and he pushed off his car, carrying a humungous bouquet of cut roses. I descended the steps slowly as he held the flowers toward me. I took them, needing two arms to do so, bringing them to my nose and inhaling their muted fragrance. “Gage? What are you doing here?”
He tilted his head, looking just a little self-conscious. It surprised me. And charmed me. Perfect Gage Buchanan was humbling himself in front of me. “I heard you might be staying.”
“From who?” I frowned.
“From Travis. Listen”—he looked behind me momentarily and then met my gaze—“I think we could have something special, Haven. If I haven’t pursued you wholeheartedly, it’s only because I’m at a point in my life where I want something serious and you were only passing through town. But now…well, I’d love to see where things might go.”
I stared at him, my mouth falling open.
I was going to kill him.
“Excuse me?”
“Not you,” I said, realizing I’d made the threat out loud. I handed him back the flowers. “I’m honored by your offer, Gage. And you deserve someone serious, someone perfect, someone who you’re perfect for.” Because Gage Buchanan was perfect. “That’s just not me.” I leaned up and kissed him on his cheek. “I hope we can be friends. I have to go.”
And with that, I jumped in my car and peeled out of the driveway of the Yellow Trellis Inn. When I glanced in my rearview mirror, the crew, including Easton, and now Gage, who had walked up the steps to join them with his massive bouquet, were all standing on the porch, watching as I drove away.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Haven
The door to his house was wide-open, an old-fashioned bike with a white woven basket featuring a daisy leaned against the porch. My heart stalled. Was there a woman here? I got out of my car slowly, closing the door and hesitantly headed toward the house I knew from the Pelion directory was Travis’s.
I knocked on the open door, leaning my head in. “Hello?” I called, walking inside, my heart rate increasing now, thumping in my ears. It smelled like fresh paint. “Travis?”
He appeared from around the corner, a box in his hands, his eyes wide with surprise. He set the box down slowly, his gaze held to mine as he straightened. “Haven?”
“Hi.” I walked inside, noting the other boxes piled here and there. “You’re moving?”
He looked around as though searching for the answer. “Uh. Yeah. Not for a couple of weeks but I’m getting a head start on packing.”
“Where?”
“Where?” he parroted.
“Where are you moving?”
He gave his head a slight shake. “Just…down the street a ways. The landlord’s cousin is moving in so I got kicked out.” He was standing so still, watching me carefully. “What are you doing here?”
I ran my finger along the chair rail, walking closer. I spotted Clawdia stretched out near a window, basking in a pool of yellow sunshine. I looked back at Travis, raising my eyebrows in question.
“I, uh, took her off Betty’s hands,” he said in explanation. “She dropped her off this morning. Said I was doing her a favor.” He glanced at the cat in question. “Clawdia gets skittish around so many moving feet. A B and B isn’t the ideal place for her.” His gaze flickered away, and Clawdia meowed from her patch of light, as if corroborating his obvious lie. Little accomplice.
My lip trembled. It turned out this big policeman was a cat lover.
But I’d already suspected as much.
I cleared my throat. “My brother came into some land.”
His eyes moved over my face. “Oh yeah?”
“He won it from a guy down at the firehouse last night. The firehouse where they’ve all but offered him a job.” I paused, giving Travis a sideways look. “The funny thing is, those guys asked Easton to go to a certain town meeting that I heard was…well, memorable.”
He kept staring. “I…see,” he finally said.
I nodded, sucking on my bottom lip. “It’s as if they knew what was going to happen at that meeting. As if they’d been told in advance.”
“I…see,” he repeated.
“And then, shocker of all shockers, my brother won some money and a plot of land later that night from one of those same firemen.”
“Lucky,” he all but choked.
“You’d think, right?” I tapped my finger on my chin. “Only…we’ve never exactly been the lucky types. So I got to wondering…”
“Uh-oh.”
My lip quirked, but despite his joke, he still looked mildly ill and as though everywhere except his mouth might have suddenly turned to stone.
“I remembered you mentioned owning a plot of land. And I got to wondering what I’d find if I looked up the deed to the one Easton now owns. When might it have been transferred to that fireman so he could ‘lose’ it in that poker game. And by whom.”
He watched me silently, finally moving as he shoved his hands in his pockets but not before I noticed they were trembling. “Don’t do that,” he said.