I can just hear the way the old biddies who meet for morning coffee at Le Pamplemousse will talk about it.
That filthy Jansen girl mauling poor Beau Eaton.
Bless Beau. Bless his good fucking heart. For a man who has seen so much, he’s sure got rose-colored glasses on when it comes to me and my reputation.
Maybe we both underestimated how deeply this town hates me, because I don’t think the promise of his last name is helping at all.
It might actually be making things worse.
Before this engagement, I moved around town like a shadow. Now I move with a big freaking target on my back, followed closely by a bunch of envious eyes that seem to track me everywhere I go.
I flop onto my back and press the heels of my hands against my eye sockets, preparing myself to get out of bed. My hands fall away when the sound of an alarm filters in from across the hall. The shrill, repeating beep shatters the silence for a few moments. It’s followed by a gruff, “Fuck,” then heavy footsteps.
I lie flat on my back, alert and listening.
The quiet click of a door. Softer footfalls. And then … silence.
I check my phone. It’s 1:59 a.m. on the nose. One minute before my alarm.
I swear I can feel Beau standing outside my door. We’re holding our breath in time. These 2:11 meetings take a toll on our sleep and our ability to think straight.
A light knock. Butterflies in my stomach.
“Bailey?”
My heart pounds. This isn’t the routine. I’m the one who sets the alarm. I flip my legs out of bed, oversized T-shirt falling mid-thigh as the cool floor seeps into the bottoms of my feet. With my hand on the doorknob, I pause. I don’t know why. Beau doesn’t scare me or make me uncomfortable. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Yet my throat is dry, and my body is coiled up tight like a spring. If I didn’t have my fingers wrapped around the metal lever, my hand would shake.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“You up?”
My lips curve. “That’s an awfully dumb question for a tier one operator.”
“Open the door,” he grumbles, clearly exasperated by my response. But who could blame me? That was a dumb question.
I open the door to face my big, dumb soldier. His body practically fills the corridor, consuming the space, the air. He’s a silhouette in a darkened hallway, lit by the soft glow of his room behind him. Beau’s enigmatic presence sucks all the shadows in from around him, straight into his darkness.
Me included.
“You set your alarm?” I inch toward him, fingers curled around the doorframe to keep myself tethered, as though holding onto the molding might keep me from reaching for him.
“Yeah, but I didn’t need to. I keep waking up at two every night now.”
“But not 2:11?”
“Well, I don’t know. Haven’t made it there.”
I worry my bottom lip. “Then why do you keep letting me set an alarm and come wake you up for a swim?”
He shrugs and drops her gaze. “I enjoy going swimming with you.”
“So you just lie there waiting for me to come knock?”
His lips twist in a mischievous smirk. “Yeah.”
A disbelieving laugh bubbles up out of me. “Beau. Eaton. Do you know how fucking tired I am?”
He looks so boyish right now, only mildly chastised. He doesn’t offer an apology.
Instead …
He offers a wordless thank you.
His thickly corded arm extends into the space between us, and my eyes need a minute to adjust to what I’m seeing in the dim light.
“Is that … ”
I reach out, fingers brushing against the matted, almost woolly texture of my stuffed horse’s coat.
“I stitched it.”
I let go of the doorframe and take the toy in both hands. My fingertips run over the line of perfect stitches down her side. “You stitched her.”
He scrubs at his beard. “Right. Her. Well … she’s Franken-pony now.”
Tears well in my eyes and I blink rapidly to push them away, not risking a glance up at Beau. I’ll sob if I do.
“I found her in a park, forgotten on a bench.” I trace the thread lines again and laugh dryly. “I know now I probably stole some other kid’s toy. But, man, in that moment? God. It felt like the universe gifted me something that was meant to be just mine. I didn’t get Barbies or toys, but I had Princess Peach.”
“Princess Peach?”
I sniff. “Yeah. That changed into just Peaches somewhere along the way. But I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t feel like a princess walking around with this stuffy for a long time.” I smile at the little beige horse. “I thought she’d be in a landfill somewhere by now.”