A layout, he realized as she arranged them. She was working on a layout now that she had the funding she’d so desperately needed.
He looked around and realized something else. After he’d made a bit of a mess last night, she’d swept up. Dusted. And gotten rid of the last of the shit lying around from the old bookstore. She’d been working hard.
Really hard, he realized, getting a closer look at her, seeing the signs of exhaustion beneath her eyes and in the tightness of her mouth. Exhaustion and worry. “You’ve been busy,” he said.
“Why do you sound surprised? It’s my store.”
He didn’t know why he was surprised, exactly. “I guess I don’t see you as the local friendly merchant type,” he said.
“Should I even ask how you do see me?”
He knew better than to touch that one.
At his silence, she made a low sound of annoyance. “You don’t know me, Ben,” she said, making him feel like an ass as she went back to her little squares, toeing some things around, giving off an I’m-very-busy vibe.
But he did know her. Or he was starting to. He knew how very much this store seemed to mean to her. Knew that whatever that list was, it, too, meant a lot.
And he knew she kissed and tasted like heaven on earth.
Not that she wanted to hear any of those things from him. “Are you sure you want things so open?” he asked, and she jumped, clearly startled to realize he was right behind her now, looking over her shoulder down at the arrangement.
“I want to encourage socializing,” she said stiffly. “I want people to have a place to go.” She didn’t look at him. “I want people to feel comfortable hanging out here so they won’t be alone.”
This made his heart squeeze, because he thought maybe she was the one who felt alone. “Why do you think people are so alone?” he finally asked, sincerely curious.
“Everyone’s alone at some point.” She glanced back at him. “You know that.”
Because he’d lost Hannah. Holding her gaze, he gave a slow nod. “And you think a bookstore can make people feel…not alone?”
“I think having a place to go can help.”
“Getting unlonely isn’t about a physical place,” he said.
“Well, I know that.” Breaking eye contact, she once again went back to her layout. “But it’s a start.”
He watched her play with the arrangement of the squares for another moment. “Why such a wide path between the seating areas?” he asked. “You could have more merchandise in here if you close it up, even a little.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Yeah? Care to share?”
“I’m going to be hosting bingo night. And the knitting club. And the cookie and book exchange. And, I hope, a whole bunch of other stuff. A lot of that includes seniors, and they need the extra space to maneuver with canes and wheelchairs and things. The other day, Mr. Elroy took out an entire book display with his cane and then blamed in on Mr. Wykowski. They nearly came to blows, like a couple of twenty-year-olds, but Lucille stepped in, telling them they couldn’t have any cookies if they didn’t zip it.”
Ben smiled. “Remember the time that you danced at the senior center and put three seniors into cardiac arrest?”
“Near cardiac arrest,” she said, correcting him. “And it was a beauty pageant. I wasn’t dancing. I was baton twirling for the talent competition.”
He fought a smile and lost. “Whatever you say, Sunshine.” He stepped into her space then, all the more amused when she went still, like Bambi in the headlights, unsure of whether to move clear, or stand firm.
She stood firm.
He pushed the squares around a bit. “How about this? You get an extra wall, which we’d make a half wall, as you wanted. That divides up the space so you can have two different groups at the same time and yet still gives you an open feel. Also, if you make the wall a shelving unit, you acquire additional product display or storage space.”
She stared down at the squares for a long moment, saying nothing.
“Or not,” he said with a shrug. “Your space.”
“No, it’s…good. You’re good.”
“Sometimes.”
Her gaze jerked to his, and for a moment, hunger and yearning was heavy in the air between them.
Then she rolled her eyes. “And so modest, too.”
He smiled, then pulled back the edge of the carpet, revealing what he’d discovered last night—hardwood floors beneath.
“Oh, my God,” she said, and dropped to her knees, bending low to see the wood more closely. “Score!”
He eyed the way her dress pulled tight over her perfect ass and said, “Definitely.” He tore his gaze off her. “I’ll pull up the carpet for you tonight if you’d like.”
“I’d like.” She stood up, dusted her hands off, and pulled out a stack of paint samples. “I was thinking this one for the walls, and this one as an accent color.”
He spread out the samples and nudged two colors over the top of her choices.
She stared down at them. “Lighter?”
“Yes. It’ll make your space appear bigger.”
“Warmer, too,” she noted.
“You wanted comfy,” he reminded her. “Your word, not mine.”
She stared at his colors for a long moment. “You going to help me paint?”
“I can do it myself,” he said, thinking a little space between them might be warranted.
“I want to be involved.”
Perfect. “Painting’s messy,” he said.
“I’m good at painting.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. If she was willing to get burned, why the hell wasn’t he?
“Besides,” she said. “I don’t tend to get messy.”
He smiled, a real one. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asked, and was rewarded by her blush.
The next night, Ben entered the bookstore after closing. He hadn’t necessarily set out to avoid Aubrey.
Okay, he’d totally set out to avoid her.As a result, he’d managed to go several hours today without thinking about her at all. Which was completely negated by the fact that she’d been starring in his dreams…
Yesterday, he’d pulled up the carpets in the bookstore. He’d swept afterward, but the hardwood had still needed some TLC. But as he looked the place over now, he realized Aubrey had scrubbed the hell out of the floors, getting up years of grime and scuffs. He didn’t know what he’d expected from her, or why he’d assumed she’d have him do as much of the dirty work as possible, but she was working her ass off, and he found that…appealing. Wildly so.
“My aunt loved this place,” she said from behind him. She was in sweats, eyes sleepy, as if maybe he’d woken her up. “I’d come here after school, and she’d have a snack waiting,” she said. “She was always so busy, because she did all the work herself, but she made time for me. No matter what her day looked like. She’d put me in that big, soft chair”—she pointed to a huge overstuffed chair in the corner—“and then she’d bring me a stack of books to read, and for a little while, I’d escape.”
“Escape what?” he asked.
She shrugged as if embarrassed and then looked out at the store. “I want to bring that magic to others.”
He had no idea why his gut tightened, or why in that moment he wanted to give her whatever she needed. “We can do that,” he said.
She turned to him. “We?”
“Your uncle hired me,” he reminded her. “I don’t leave a job just because the customer drives me insane.”
She gave a little smile. “But why is this your job in the first place? Why are you even back in Lucky Harbor?”
Good question. Loaded question. Here felt like…home. Here was where he felt most like himself, but he shrugged. “Maybe I missed it,” he said, testing the waters by saying it out loud.
“Sentimental, Ben? You?”
“You don’t know me,” he said, repeating the words she had said to him. “Or who I am.”
She didn’t smile, but she did nod in acknowledgement. “Is it getting easier?” she asked quietly. “Being here without her?”
He paused. No one ever asked him that. Where he’d been, most people had no idea he’d lost his wife. Only the people here in Lucky Harbor knew it. And the people here tended to tiptoe around the subject, not wanting to upset the grieving widower.
But five years was a long time, and he’d learned that as much as you loved someone, you couldn’t keep her memory alive in your head for five years. Much as you loved someone, her laugh, her smile, her voice…it all faded a little with time. “I’m not on the edge of a cliff, if that’s what you’re asking,” he finally said.
“What are you?”
He shrugged. “Tired, mostly.”
“Given where you’ve been and what you’ve done, I can only imagine,” she said softly.
Uncomfortable with this very real conversation, he turned away and walked the length of the room, pulling out his tape measure. “I bought the wood for the shelving units. I’ll get more for the half wall if you want to go that route.”
“I do,” she said. “I scrubbed the floors, and since I like them scarred, I’m not going to do anything else to them. You’re good at changing the subject, you know that?”
He did know that. She wanted to talk about the past five years, which made her as interested in him as he was in her.
She lifted a shoulder and gestured around her. “A bookstore is my favorite place. It shouldn’t surprise you that I read—a lot. Research a lot. Your last project saved the lives of thousands, providing not only water for farmers and their crops but also giving them a means to keep providing those things on their own for generations to come.”
His brows went up, both surprised and uncomfortable with the close scrutiny. “Are you actually giving me a compliment?”
“Maybe. Just a little bit.”
“Why?”
“Why? What do you mean, why?”
He moved toward her, noting with some amusement that she sucked in a breath but held her own and stood firm.
They bumped. Front to front.
She appeared to stop breathing and tilted her head up, her gaze going to his mouth. “You know why,” she whispered. “Because we’re…attracted to each other.”
“That’s one word for it.” Slowly he lifted a hand, watching her pupils dilate as he reached toward her…
And then past her to the counter, where he flipped open her notebook.
She blinked, whipping around to see what he was after, and went from soft and dreamy to pissed off in the blink of an eye. “Hey—”
“You’ve got someone crossed off,” he said, teasing her. “Should I call the police?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Ha-ha.” She snatched back her notebook. “Maybe you can be a funny carpenter and actually get some work done. I need those shelves, like, yesterday.”
“What else do you need?”
She was at the door already but stopped to turn and look at him. “Excuse me?”
“A minute ago, it seemed like you needed a man.”
“I don’t need anyone,” she said. “But if I did, it’d be someone…sweet,” she said pointedly. “Sweet and…beta.”
“Beta,” he repeated.
“That’s right,” she said. “I’m over alpha men. And you, Ben McDaniel, are as alpha as they come.”
Well, she had him there.
Chapter 10
Two days later, Aubrey pulled up to her mom’s house and checked herself out in the rearview mirror. Pale. Serious.
Stressed.
She put on some shiny lip gloss and then smiled—a big fake smile that didn’t reach her eyes. One could fake anything, she knew, including happiness.
She was a pro at that.
But it was important to her that her mom really believe she was happy. Tammy had been through a lot in life—too much. So keeping the smile in place, Aubrey headed up the walk to her mom’s condo. The evening was chilly but gorgeous. Clear and sharp, without a cloud in the sky. The stars lit her way.
She didn’t even have to knock. With uncanny mom radar, Tammy sensed her daughter coming home to the fold and threw open the front door. “My baby!” she squealed with an ear-to-ear grin, yanking Aubrey in close for a tight hug. “Come in! I’ve got chicken frying, and now that you’re here, I’ll make mac and cheese, too, the way you love it, with the crusty bread crumbs and extra cheese on top.”
Comfort food. Once upon a time, Aubrey had lived for such meals. Until the day she’d gone headfirst into puberty and couldn’t fit into her jeans. After that, she’d secretly starved herself, pretending to eat her mom’s food but really feeding it straight into the trash compactor.
Tammy had often expressed her pleasure at passing her “good metabolism” to her own flesh and blood, but the truth was Aubrey had her father’s metabolism. She had to watch every calorie and work her ass off at the gym for every single indulgence she took. “I’m not hungry, Mom.”
“Nonsense! You have to eat. I hope Carla comes tonight.”
“Mom,” Aubrey said slowly, not wanting her to be disappointed, as she always was. “Carla’s not coming.”
“Yes, I am.” Carla came in behind Aubrey, still in scrubs. “But I’ve only got half an hour before I have to be back.”