Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8)

by Brenna Jacobs

  “Yes. Yes. Thanks, Dave. I understand. Thank you. Bye.” She clicked off her phone and turned to see him standing there.

  “Chief called,” she said. “He wanted to make sure I knew that I didn’t need to worry.” She smiled sadly at him. “Sorry about the head. Let me rig up an ice pack for you.” She pointed at the seats around the table.

  “Mom, I’m totally capable of making my own ice pack,” he said, sitting down obediently in the chair he’d always occupied at meals.

  “I know, but you have to let me do something, or I’d feel useless around here.”

  He wondered if she had any idea that he felt exactly the same way.

  Chapter 10

  Hadley’s watch vibrated to let her know she had another text. Niles had been sending her messages all day from an estate sale he was overseeing—a generous term for wandering through and clapping his hands with glee when he saw something one of his friends would love. Apparently, the family in question was not attached to the library, including a pristine set of Encyclopedia Britannica from 1845, which would look amazing displayed on the rolltop desk Hadley had spent last summer refinishing.

  Deciding Niles could wait, Hadley stayed up on the ladder stringing hanging lights around the windows until a family came in, arms loaded with fleece blankets and teddy bears. She climbed down and greeted them, thanking them for their generosity. As she showed the kids where to place their donations, she wondered if Fletcher would carry one of these blankets to a child who had just lost everything, if Fletcher would be the one to deliver this soft comfort.

  “Go ahead and choose anything from the green-marked shelves,” Hadley said, pointing to the section of kids’ books she’d arranged as trade for the donations. “Each of you pick something,” she whispered to the kids. “Don’t let your parents convince you that you have to share.” She caught the mom’s grin and smiled back.

  After the kids found some treasures, Hadley checked supply levels in the poetry room. Besides reams of creamy thick paper, boxes of pens and markers, and bins of word games, she had three typewriters, one from the thirties, one from the fifties, and a blue electric one from the seventies, set up on a cool, old dining table. People could sit and write poems, taking their finished work with them or attaching the papers to clothespins that stuck to the metal wall at the back of the room. Hadley loved to come and see what people had created. She figured she sold more poetry books than the average secondhand bookshop this way, but honesty compelled her to admit that she knew nothing about what might make an average secondhand bookshop successful as far as poetry sales were concerned.

  She knew the measures of her own success; she wanted to average bringing in four times her expenses every month. So far, after two years, she’d achieved that goal three times. It wasn’t something she brought up to her father.

  Aiming high was nothing new to Hadley. And she aimed high enough that falling short of actually reaching her monthly goal still allowed her to run a successful business. But at the back of her mind, she always harbored the feeling that her parents and her sister were watching, arms at the ready to catch her when she fell, not if.

  She’d show them.

  Restacking a pile of paper next to the Olivetti typewriter, she clacked a key just to hear it strike. A truly satisfying sound.

  Another text buzzed in on her watch, and she read it quickly, expecting Niles had found her more treasures. Instead, it was Rose Gates.

  Miss you. Can you come for dinner tonight?

  Hadley had missed her occasional lunches with Rose, but the possibility of running into Fletcher was too high, especially in those first weeks, when every meeting with him ended in injury or frustration. She knew she wasn’t at her best when he was around.

  But lately she’d been perfectly nice to him, and he’d been the same. When he wasn’t telling her all the ways her shop was approaching utter destruction.

  That didn’t mean she was interested in trying to make small talk over a meal.

  The shop is open until 8 tonight—sorry!

  Rose answered almost immediately.

  Come after?

  Surely Fletcher was working tonight, and that was why Rose wanted Hadley to come and keep her company. She wouldn’t ask Hadley over when Fletcher was around, would she? She wasn’t one of those moms, on a mission to fix up her eligible, handsome, firefighter son, was she? She had never been that way before, but Hadley had made it very clear that she had zero interest in the tiniest possibility of ever speaking Fletcher’s name again.

  Things were different now.

  Now she and Fletcher had reconnected. They’d shared a meal (she was reluctant to call it a date, even in her head, although he asked her to lunch and she said yes and they went together and he paid, which obviously). They’d hung out with her dog in the park.

  Everything was normal.

  Except Hadley had no idea what “normal” meant where Fletcher Gates was concerned. If it was casually saying hello and being friendly when they saw each other socially, they hadn’t been “normal” since they were thirteen years old. They’d been together. Very together. Then they’d been apart. Completely apart.

  And now they were something else.

  Were they the kind of people who ate meals together with one or more of their parents present? That sounded so manufactured. So chaperoned. So Regency romance novel-ish.

  But the contrivance wasn’t her only concern.

  Hadley wasn’t sure she could hide her growing attraction. She wasn’t sure she could sit across the table from him and not jump over the table and into his lap. When she saw him, her hands began to sweat. When she thought of him, she wanted him to put his arms around her like he used to. When he smiled at her…

  “We. Are. Friends.” Hadley whispered the words in short, angry bursts, demanding that her brain and her body follow her lead.

  “Okay,” a little voice replied. “We are friends.” A girl about six years old with pony stickers covering both cheeks held up her fist for a knuckle bump. Hadley complied and reminded herself to keep her internal dialogue good and internal from now on.

  Returning to the front desk and realizing that she hadn’t answered Rose’s second request, Hadley pulled out her phone. Another message from Rose flashed on her screen.

  Fletcher got hurt, and he could use some company.

  “Faith? You’re closing,” Hadley said over her shoulder as she grabbed her coat and ran out the door.

  Three blocks later, she arrived puffing at Rose’s door. To say Rose looked surprised to see her might have been an understatement.

  “Oh. Hadley. Hi, honey,” Rose said. “Sorry. I thought you were…” She stammered a little, and Hadley translated in her head.

  “Sorry,” Hadley said, feeling a flush warm her cheeks. “I know I said I was working. And I was. I am. But you said,” Hadley used her hands to say what her mouth was incapable of, gesturing inside and beyond.

  Rose took both of Hadley’s hands. “He’s fine.” She said the words with such authority that Hadley felt herself stop worrying, right in that moment.

  “What happened?” Hadley asked, but before Rose could answer, Fletcher walked up the stairs beside the front door.

  “Hi, Hadley. Come in,” he said, nudging his mom and giving her a pretend-stern look. “We don’t leave our guests standing in doorways,” he said with exaggerated politeness.

  Rose mimed a playful swat at the back of his head and Fletcher winced. “Careful,” he said, a bit of a hitch in his voice.

  “Oh, honey,” Rose said, sucking in a breath and covering her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Just kidding. You didn’t even make contact.”

  Rose swatted him again, this time on his arm. She muttered something Hadley was certain she wasn’t supposed to hear.

  “Mother, please. There’s a lady present,” Fletcher scolded.

  They all laughed.

  “You two come in and sit down,” Rose said. “I’ll
order us some dinner and be in shortly.”

  Hadley folded her legs under her in the corner of the big brown couch. Fletcher sat in the other corner, facing her.

  “Hi.” He didn’t look injured.

  “Hi,” she said back. Could he tell she was scrutinizing him for signs of brokenness?

  “Don’t take this like I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?” he asked.

  Hadley felt her face heat up. “Rose texted.”

  Fletcher rolled his eyes. “She shouldn’t have. I’m fine.”

  “You got hurt,” Hadley said, with a hint of a prod.

  “It was literally one half-step away from nothing,” he answered. “It’s dumb. I’m completely fine.”

  “Okay.” She was dying to know the details, but she promised herself she wouldn’t be nosy.

  He said nothing, just watched her.

  She fiddled with her jacket zipper. She would not ask.

  A smug grin began to bloom on his face, which saved Hadley from herself. He knew she was going nuts waiting to find out what happened, and he was going to make her ask.

  She folded her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow.

  They sat like that, unspoken challenges in the air, until he got bored. “You close the store early?”

  She shook her head. “I left Faith to close up.”

  “Does she know that?” he asked.

  “What? Do you think I’d just leave without telling her? Of course she knows.”

  Right then, Hadley’s phone chimed. It was a text from Faith.

  Did you leave?

  Hadley burst out laughing and held her phone out so Fletcher could read it.

  “Maybe I should go back.” She started to stand up, but he put his hand out to catch her.

  “Wait. Please, stay.”

  She stopped. His hand was still on her wrist, and her skin flamed under the touch of his fingers.

  “Please?” he repeated. “I’ll pretend to be injured if it will make you stay.”

  She rolled her eyes and sat back down. “Don’t flatter yourself. I came because Rose promised me pizza.”

  They shared a look that suggested nothing at all related to pizza.

  “Want to hear about my day?” Fletcher asked.

  “Oh, all right. I guess,” Hadley teased.

  “So there was a fire in a barn out in Eagle Creek.”

  “Mr. Vincent?” Hadley asked, sitting up straighter.

  “Mister someone who has a farm with a barn out in Eagle Creek.”

  “You didn’t talk to him?”

  “I did talk to him. Do you want to hear this story or not?”

  Hadley pressed her mouth closed, enjoying the way he pretended to be annoyed. He still had that carefree, teasing smile she’d loved so much.

  That carefree, teasing smile she’d appreciated once in her life, she meant. Because it was a smile worthy of appreciation.

  “So there was a barn fire. I led in,” he said, “which means I got to be the guy who kicked the door open.”

  “And a beam from the ceiling knocked loose and smacked you in the head?” she said.

  He stared at her, his mouth open. “Seriously?”

  “Sorry. Get to the good part.”

  “You,” he said, pointing a finger at Hadley’s nose, “are going to sit quietly and let me tell my story.”

  She nodded and watched him try not to smile. He was unsuccessful.

  “I went inside and found this guy and his grandson. The barn was black with smoke. They had to get out of there fast, so I escorted them outside.”

  “Where you were jumped by bandits.”

  He slid down the couch until his head rested on the back of the cushion. Closing his eyes, he said, “I’m going to sleep now. You just tell yourself a story because my reality can’t compete with your fiction. Your story is way better than anything I could possibly tell you.”

  She sat and watched him for a minute or two. She wondered if he actually had fallen asleep. “So,” she whispered, leaning close to his ear, “are you going to tell me what really happened?”

  Without opening his eyes, Fletcher placed his palm on her face and gently pushed her away from him. She slid his hand away and snuggled against his shoulder. Still whispering, she said, “Please tell me the story of your bravery. I find acts of heroism extremely attractive.”

  When he spoke, there was no modulation in his tone. “I got attacked by an angry horse.”

  Speechless, Hadley held her breath, knowing she should move further away from him but too comfortable being so close to him to listen to the advice her brain tried to send her.

  When there did not appear to be more to the story, she said, “Really? Is that what actually happened? That’s terrifying.”

  Fletcher’s eyes were still closed, but he shifted so she was more comfortable. “You’re picturing something dramatic, aren’t you?”

  “Well, of course I am,” she said. How could she not? “Are you really okay?”

  “Right this minute I am,” he said, tucking her inside the circle of his arm. Alarm bells went off in her head, but she shut them off and laid her head on his shoulder.

  He didn’t say anything more, and Hadley watched his face as they lay there, her eyes skimming the line of his jaw, the dark stubble on his cheek, the curve of his black eyelashes below his eye.

  It had always been a good face. He’d grown into it, now.

  She felt him relax, and then relax more, until his breathing deepened and evened, and she knew he’d fallen asleep. Carefully, slowly, she sat up and inched away from him. She stood and watched him lying there for a minute, and then found Rose sitting at the table in the kitchen.

  “Everything okay?” Rose said, and Hadley nodded and sat, too.

  “I hope it didn’t look like I was luring you here under false pretenses,” Rose went on, tilting her head to indicate Fletcher in the other room.

  “He’s hurt?” Hadley said. “He looks fine.” Picturing his face relaxed, his half-smile, his welcoming arm, she knew he looked so much more than fine.

  Rose shook her head. “He took a solid hit in the head and got himself a little concussion, and Chief insists nobody works unless they’re at full capacity. I think he’s embarrassed. If you get hurt on a call, you’re supposed to break a bone or something. He’s hurt, but maybe not quite enough for maximum tough-guy credit. You’re not bothered that I called you over here, are you?”

  “No. I was worried, though,” Hadley admitted.

  “Yeah, I could tell by the speed with which you made it from your shop to our door.” She chuckled. “I haven’t seen you hustle over here that fast since the time I made pierogis for lunch last spring.”

  Hadley was less than totally comfortable discussing why she came so fast, so she grabbed onto the other part of that sentence. “I miss our lunches,” she said.

  “Me, too. Think we could get back into them? We don’t have to tell him,” Rose said with a wink.

  “I’d love to. But we don’t have to keep it from Fletcher. Just as long as we don’t have to invite him.” She leaned over and put her arm around Rose to give her shoulder a squeeze. “I’m selfish that way.”

  Rose scoffed. “You are not selfish in any way. But we might have to arrange the days more carefully now and then.”

  Hadley understood. “How are treatments?”

  “Fine. Doing the job. How’s the store?”

  “Amazing,” Hadley said, and she told Rose funny stories about mishaps and successes, families walking away with new treasure, and Edison creating trouble. They were interrupted by a knock at the front door.

  “Dinner’s here,” Rose said.

  “Let me get it,” Hadley said, and she met the pizza guy at the door, taking the warm cardboard box from him and paying quietly so she didn’t wake Fletcher. She should not have underestimated his sense of smell, though. Even if he’d been on the other side of a concrete wall, Fletcher had always been able to tell w
hen there was Gino’s pizza in the vicinity.

  She watched him wince as he sat up, so whatever it was that had happened to him, it had hurt him; she felt grateful it was mild. There would come a time, probably in the three o’clock hour tonight, when she’d explore what had made her run to Fletcher’s side this evening, but for the moment, she was happy to be here, in this home she loved, with Rose and hot pizza and, sure, even with Fletcher.

  Chapter 11

  Fletcher’s three-day convalescence would, he knew, kill him. He’d been hurt in high school sports enough to know that the “play through it” mentality impressed a coach but not a trainer. If getting back into the job was his goal, resting his head was the right road.

  By day two, he was climbing the walls. Not literally, of course. He cleaned Rose’s bathrooms from ceiling to floorboards. He vacuumed the entire house and took her car to the detail carwash. Then he power-washed the driveway, and by that time it was only 10:30 a.m.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Rose suggested. “You’re pacing a track in my floor.”

  “Give me something else to do around here. It’s not even noon.” Fletcher stopped walking circles around the living room.

  “And look how much you’ve accomplished,” she said.

  He scowled.

  “You should go over to Hadley’s shop. She’s always got more to do than she has time for.”

  “I’d love to help her, but what can I do? I can hardly rewire her electrical system in the next two days.” Fletcher knew his voice sounded whiny and he stopped talking before he made it worse.

  “I don’t mean a complete rehab. But she’s got a million projects. Maybe there’s one perfect for a guy with a sprained brain.” Rose handed him his sweatshirt and nudged him out the door. He was making himself crazy, and it looked like he was bugging her, too.

  When he pushed inside the Second Glance front door, Hadley looked over to see who had come in.

  Did he imagine that she startled? He didn’t imagine her smile. She looked glad to see him.

  “I thought you’d be laying in a hammock waiting for someone to bring you a tropical drink about now,” she said, the corner of her mouth twitching the way it always had when she was teasing him.