“He’s a very nice man and I brought him some homemade brownies which he seemed glad to receive.”
“No chocolate allergy like his son?”
Gemma remembered how she’d thought that was why Boone had refused those treats she’d baked weeks ago. Just last night, he’d appreciated being allowed to scoop the batter from the bowl after she was through with it…and then they’d exchanged chocolate-y kisses until they’d gone to bed, sticky-fingered and sticky-lipped but amorous all the same.
“Earth to boss lady?” May said now.
“Yes?” Gemma blinked a couple of times, pulling free of her heated memories.
“Those King twins came in while you were gone to look at the proposed schedule, and—”
The bells rang out on the door and they both looked over to see a group of women enter the shop. Already one was hailing Gemma. “I’ve been in before and I have a special request,” she called out.
With a “later” for May, she put her helping face on and was kept busy for the next couple of hours. Every time she tried to follow up with May, the other woman was aiding a customer and then that would turn around and Gemma herself would be engaged.
At the back of her mind, concern nibbled at her upbeat mood. Lynnie and Molly King had filled out paperwork and espoused enthusiasm for a limited schedule. Gemma hoped nothing had come up to change their minds because she was looking forward to freeing up more of her time. If she had help on the floor during the afternoons, she could attend to paperwork during some of those hours, leaving her evenings more available to spend with…her friend.
Finally, the shop quieted and she and May were able to move from room to room, refolding, re-righting, and restocking as needed. As if agreed upon, a few minutes before their final closing tasks they met in the break room for cups of tea.
“What happened with the twins?” Gemma asked, addressing the potential cloud she sensed hovering in her blissful blue skies. “Are they rethinking working for us?” The two had retail experience from odd shifts at the family’s nursery business, but they’d expressed eagerness to get out from under their brother Eli’s ever-watchful eye.
“No, no, they want to work here when needed,” May said, shaking her head so her ringlets bounced like bronze-and-brown springs. “Abso happy about it. They just commented they were glad they both weren’t on the schedule for this Sunday the fourteenth. They’d hoped that at least one of them could be home to help with setting up for the life celebration.”
Gemma blinked. “What life celebration?”
“Oh.” May cleared her throat. “I supposed you knew. That friend of Boone’s…he was going to be his best man…”
“You mean Hart Sawyer?”
“Yes. The twins told me there’s going to be a memorial event for his late fiancée at their home on Valentine’s Day. I thought you’d be going as well—that Boone would want you beside him.”
“I don’t know anything about it.” Gemma sipped her tea and wondered why Boone hadn’t mentioned it to her.
“It’s not open to the public or anything,” May said. “I gathered from what they said it’s for family and friends.”
Friends. Of course, she’d only met Hart the one time and spent a mere few hours with the poker buddies and others who’d gathered at his house that day following the death. If it was a private celebration, then there was no reason for her to be invited.
But there was also no reason for Boone to keep it from her…unless they weren’t really friends, in an intimate sense that went beyond the bedroom. Her spirits, so high previously, took a sudden downturn.
“I’ve said something wrong.” May looked clearly dismayed.
“No, no,” she assured her assistant, then set her mug aside. “I’m going to do a closing walk-through.”
Attempting to regain her earlier chipper mood, Gemma strolled briskly about the shop, making sure there weren’t any items that needed to go to their lost and found drawer—cell phones were often found between chair cushions—or any customers who’d nodded off in the dressing room—happened once to a lady who’d stopped by to shop after a red-wine-and-roast-beef lunch. Everything appeared as it should and then, while passing the stairs, she recalled Boone telling her on their drive to his dad’s that she should check out his work on the floor above.
That morning he’d finished the final tasks on the punch list he’d made.
The completion meant she was free to move from the house in Sawyer Shores, she thought. Her heart gave a little bump as she slowly climbed the stairs. Because of residual nerves, she told herself. Despite the time Boone had been putting into the apartment, she’d avoided that level of the house ever since she’d been locked in the supply closet.
On the upper landing, her gaze moved to the hobbit-sized door that had latched behind her the other day. A new mechanism had been installed and one of Boone’s business cards was tucked into a metallic corner. Dark block printing advised that it wouldn’t lock on its own and that the swinging apparatus had also been oiled and tested.
I’m here. I found you.
Closing her eyes, she remembered his words as he’d held her close, soothing her fears away.
I’m always going to be right here.
He’d said that, too. But as she moved into the living space of the upstairs apartment, she had to wonder. Once they were no longer neighbors, where would he be in her life?
Her gaze moved from place to place, taking in the gleaming, newly painted woodwork, the installed cabinetry hardware, the bed set up under the eaves. It had been delivered in pieces a few days ago, and Boone had taken the time to put the frame together. She could imagine it now, with the new mattress she’d ordered and the new linens and blankets waiting downstairs.
Would Boone ever join her there, for sex and then to sleep like they always did, pretzeled around each other like a pair of domestic partners?
A small table had been placed beside the bed, not in its usual spot on the painted back porch below stairs. It had bent-iron legs and a tiled mosaic top, but it was the tiny vase at its center that drew her closer. Inside the elegant glass container was a single, simple daisy.
Another of Boone’s cards lay on the table’s surface, flipped over to reveal his handwritten message—Sweet dreams.
Two brief syllables. Too much like goodbye.
The words, the masculine handwriting, the daisy…they all combined in that moment to make her eyes prick with unwelcome tears. She set her mouth and dashed them away, annoyed with herself.
Annoyed with this weird and stupid need to cry when just a couple of hours ago she’d sworn she was having the best time of her life.
* * *
Boone took a seat on the edge of his bed and gazed at the women sleeping there, lying on her side with the blankets tucked around her as he’d arranged them when he’d awakened at dawn. She’d not stirred during his shower or when he’d tiptoed around the room getting dressed. His quiet clatter in the kitchen to make coffee and wolf down a bowl of cereal had also left her unmoved.
Apparently, last night he’d worn her out.
Smiling at the thought, he let his hand drift to her hair. He pushed the strands from her face, revealing more of one flushed cheek and half her rosy lips. Unable to resist, he allowed a fingertip to brush her silky skin, tracing a line from her temple to her chin.
Her lashes fluttered and her limbs shifted beneath the covers as she turned onto her back. Perhaps he should regret disturbing her rest, but it never felt wrong to look into her eyes, now blurry with sleep.
“Morning,” he whispered.
“Is it?” she asked. “Already?”
He nodded. “February 13th, Galentine’s Day. I know you wanted to get to the shop early, but you have time yet.”
“You’re up,” she said, frowning.
“Because I have places to go and people to see. It’s going to be a busy couple of days for me, too.”
“Doing what?”
An innocent questio
n, but he didn’t feel like getting into things that would bring shadows into the room and into her eyes. He hadn’t told her about the event at Eli’s tomorrow for just that very reason. “The usual. Slinging hammers, crunching numbers.”
“Oh.”
The single syllable left her mouth in the shape of a kiss, but he refused to allow himself another taste of her in case it caused him to crawl into bed and delay the start of his day.
There were things he had to attend to and using sex to avoid them was a spineless move.
“So your agenda for the immediate future…it’s your customary wrangling of carpenters and reasoning with clients?”
“Mm-hmm,” he agreed, brushing his palm over her hair, helping himself to a last moment of contact.
“That’s it? Carpenters and clients?”
Distracted by the way the dark strands looked, glossy and disarrayed on his pillow, he merely nodded in assent. “Coffee’s ready in the kitchen,” he said next, preparing to rise from the bed. “I’ll see you later.”
“Will you?” she murmured.
He frowned, settling again. “What do you mean?”
Her gaze shifted away. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you…whenever.”
Whenever? “What’s that mean? Wasn’t it you who said she’d make spaghetti for me this evening?”
“Reconsidering that,” she replied, still not looking at him. “Instead, I think I’ll pack up and spend tonight at the new apartment. There’s really not much of mine next door and why put off moving, right?”
“Right,” he agreed automatically, even as a spurt of temper shot into his system. Clearly he wasn’t being invited to eat at her new place or sleep in her new bed. Was it that easy for her to change their plans…and the way they’d been practically living together?
But who the hell could blame her, he thought on the heels of that, when he’d never suggested he was interested in anything beyond an enthusiastic shag in the sack?
He ran a hand through his hair, scraping his nails over his scalp. In fact, it only pissed him off more to realize she’d expected so little of him.
Okay, maybe that emotion wasn’t completely reasonable given the facts of the situation, but…fuck it. She deserved better, more, and for the past couple of weeks she’d settled for less.
She’d settled for him, a man who didn’t have to offer the kind of future worthy of her. And now she was beginning to realize what he knew—that it wasn’t enough.
Scowling, he got to his feet and reached into his pocket for his keys. “If you want, I can send a couple of my crew over this afternoon to help transfer your stuff.”
Her gaze flew to his. “Not…you?”
He hardened his resolve, knowing that making a clean break now was best for her long-term future. “Like I said, I’ve got a lot on my plate.”
“Thank you then, but no,” she said, so polite she might as well be lunching with the queen. “I can manage it myself.”
“Right. Okay. Good.” He strode to the door, then took one quick glance back. The expression on her face almost drove him to his knees. Her pretty mouth was set and the warm color had left her skin. The look in her eyes…hurt. It only fed his anger at himself as he forced his feet onward.
Damn, damn, damn.
He’d gone along with this friends with benefits idea that had led to her inevitable disappointment in him this morning. The disappointment that had been prescribed from the moment he’d put his mouth on hers.
She’d wasted her kisses on him, he could see that now.
So, yeah, today’s breakup was best for Gemma’s long-term future.
As for himself, in a few hours he’d get used to the idea of her being out of his life—it had always been in the cards, after all—and then he’d accept it.
He kept that certainty running through his mind as he ran his supervisory eye over a couple of job sites, ate a shitty, plastic-wrapped sub from a convenience store because he was avoiding the better places near downtown Sawyer Beach, and drove to Eli’s place later in the afternoon.
Striding around back of the old farmhouse, he spotted his friend, who stood between stacks of folded chairs and long, plastic-topped tables, his head bent as he glared at a printed list.
“Need help?” Boone asked Eli.
“Ask me to build a diorama with a shoe box and sugar cubes. Ask me to superglue a fallen hemline to avert a prom night disaster. Ask me to beadazzle half-a-dozen tutus for a dance performance—”
“You…beadazzle?” Boone only had a vague idea of what that entailed.
“—but don’t leave me alone setting up for tomorrow.”
“You’re not alone,” Boone assured him. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Since he’d seen the other man handle a sleepover for ten ten-year-olds, one that included pony rides and K-pop karaoke, he dismissed his buddy’s slight note of panic. They were all on edge over seeing Hart again, who’d been with Kim’s family since her death and was only now due back in town.
He slapped his hands together. “What should I do first?”
They set up fifty chairs in rows and dragged a podium to the front, placing a planter of newly planted petunias on either side. Tables found their place near the back door, close to the kitchen, where food and drink would be offered the next afternoon.
“It looks good,” Boone observed, as they stood back on the grass and scanned the scene. “Especially when the tablecloths and more flowers show up.”
“The twins are on all that,” Eli said. “Hart’s family have organized the food.”
“Nice of you to volunteer your place.”
“They wanted somewhere familiar for Hart but where he wouldn’t find memories of Kim around every corner. She never visited here.”
Boone ran an expert gaze along the lines of the two-story, sprawling residence, painted a dark gray blue with white trim edged in black. The mature, lush landscaping testified to his friend’s small but successful nursery business, inherited from his parents. “This is a good home. A nice place for a family.”
“The next family,” Eli said, emphatic. “It’s college acceptances for the twins and then I’m trading this monstrosity for a bachelor pad with a big bed and an even bigger TV. No pots, no pans, no beadazzling equipment. I’m gonna eat out every meal and get laid by a different woman at least three times a week.”
“Good to see you have goals,” Boone commented drily. “Your sisters are okay with you giving the place up, though? They don’t want to keep it?”
His friend shrugged. “They say not.” He turned his head, as a group of young women tramped out the back door. “Speak of the devils-I-know.”
Boone followed his gaze, noting the King twins and then another person, a woman who looked to be older than Lynnie and Molly and who had a toddler—girl, judging by a giant bow wrapped around her small head—on her hip. “Who’s that?”
Eli had unearthed his list again and was studying it, but he glanced up. “Sloane—I forget her last name. She’s a single mom and the girls sometimes babysit for her.” His attention had already returned to his paper.
“Quite a looker.” An understatement. Sloane had a curvy figure, hair the color of corn silk, and a bow-shaped mouth, a little like the one on the doll her towheaded child held beneath her arm.
“Single mom,” Eli said again, clearly dismissive. “Since I’ve already raised a family, I’m taking a hard pass.”
“Without a second look?” Boone prodded.
“Without a second look, without a first look. As far as I’m concerned, she’s nothing more than a neighbor—” He broke off, and turned to Boone. “Hey, what about you? Are you and your pretty lady-next-door interested in buying a home readymade for a happy-ever-after and rug rats? I can tell you—”
“Gemma and I are just friends. No, we’re not even that,” Boone put in hastily, wanting to set the record straight. Today’s breakup was best for her long-term future, he reminded himself, and he was okay with that. Hauling in a br
eath, he forced out five more words. “I’m calling off the claim.”
“Now why does statement make you look ready to eat nails?” a new voice wondered out loud.
Hart.
The man looked leaner, tougher, and unapproachable in a way he’d never been before. But Boone strode to his best friend anyway, grabbed him by each shoulder, then yanked him in for a grizzly hug, the kind that cracked a few ribs if at all possible. Eli followed suit, and then there were stupid questions—how are you?—stupider small talk—looks like spring has arrived for the moment—and an awkward silence before Hart asked Boone for a ride to the beach.
“My mother dropped me here but I gotta get some fresh air,” he said.
Boone complied without bothering to point out that the oxygen was plenty clean in Eli’s backyard, and drove straight to one of their usual haunts, parking his truck in the lot beside the sand. Before he even had his door open, Hart was trudging over the low dunes to the ocean.
Boone caught up with him, taking a sidelong glance to assess the other man’s mood.
Low. Dark. Sorrowful.
Shit.
Not that he’d expected anything less. Hart had been heels over ass for Kim and his whole future had ceased to be when she passed away.
What did anyone say in the face of that?
“Have the crews been coming out here after work as usual?” Hart asked.
It was common for the construction teams to go to the beach a couple of times a week to throw footballs or Frisbees, kick around soccer balls, or start an impromptu volleyball game. Since Hart left town, they’d all headed for a bar or straight home after work.
“Maybe when the weather improves,” Boone said, avoiding glancing up at the cloudless sky. He breathed in the salty air, felt the sun on his shoulders, and tried telling himself his best friend was going to survive this.
ALL IN (7-Stud Club Book 1) Page 18