Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(42)

She raised her head, and her eyes slammed into his for confirmation. He nodded slowly at her while speaking to her uncle. “Yes, sir. I’d appreciate it if you could pack some up for me on ice.”

“Laire,” said her uncle, “I’ll go get ’em and pack ’em in back. You charge him for three dozen, hear?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, still staring at Erik.

As soon as her uncle was out of earshot, she whispered, “You came to tell me? That you were leavin’ for a few days?”

He nodded. “I hoped you were workin’ this mornin’. I couldn’t think of another way to get word to you. I’ll be in Raleigh until Sunday. I didn’t want you to think I was standin’ you up or that my feelin’s had changed or . . .”

She smiled at him, then looked down at the counter, blinking back tears as she wrote up his order.

“Erik,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

She chanced a glance at him. “I’m falling in love with you too.”

They held each other’s eyes for an intense moment. Though Erik had said these words to her twice, it was the first time Laire returned them, and she could see the sudden surge of tenderness in his eyes as he gazed back at her. He leaned toward her, and it took every ounce of her strength not to leap across the goddamned counter that separated them.

Before one of them did something stupid, she drew back and cleared her throat. “That’ll be eighteen fifty, Mr. Rexford.”

He reached into his back pocket, opened his wallet, and slid a credit card across the counter to her.

“Want that I tape up the cooler?” yelled her uncle from the back room.

“Sure! Thanks!” called Erik.

She took the card, still warm from his body, and ran it through the machine. When she returned it to him, his index finger brushed hers, and she shivered with longing.

“I’m workin’ Sunday night.”

“I’ll see you then,” he whispered.

“I’ll miss you,” she mouthed as she handed him a pen.

He nodded at her and signed the receipt, sliding both back across the counter.

“Here we go!” said her uncle, hefting a cooler onto the counter. “Now you got crabs!”

Laire couldn’t help the way her mind returned seamlessly to their first meeting, nor the way her shoulders suddenly started shaking with glee.

“Enj-joy them,” she managed to choke out, grateful to her uncle for inadvertently adding a bit of levity to the moment.

“I will,” he said, taking the cooler and tucking it under his arm. “Thank you, sir.”

“Our pleasure, Mr. Rexford.”

“Thanks, miss,” he said to Laire, his eyes telling her everything his lips couldn’t.

“Our pleasure, Mr. Rexford,” she said softly, hating the moment he turned around and walked out of the shop.

The little bell tinkled again as the door shut behind him, and she watched him walk the length of the dock, back to his pretty little boat. It was as though her heart stretched from her chest to his, aching with the exercise, longing to go with him, unsatisfied to stay within Laire when, more and more, it belonged to Erik.

“The goddamn governor’s son!” her uncle cried, rapping his knuckles on the countertop. “Your daddy won’t believe it!”

“He was nice,” she said hopefully, turning to look at her uncle.

“Nice. Pshaw.” He screwed up his face at her. “He’s just another rich dingbatter. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less.”

She lifted her chin. “Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for him to tell a few folks about those blues if he likes ’em.”

“I figure we do well enough with the hoi polloi,” her uncle shot back, using an old island term for “regular folks.”

Laire shrugged. “I guess we do.”

“Well, Laire,” he said, “I’ll be off now. Got a few deliveries over on Ocracoke. Let me know if the president’s daughter stops in for some mackerel, eh?” he asked, chuckling as he turned and headed for the back room.

She looked up in time to see Erik’s boat zoom away.

Four nights without him.

She hated the very thought.

Reaching into her pocket, she massaged the warm metal of her Elizabethan Gardens pendant, braced her elbows back on the counter, and sighed.

***

Erik had no interest in the soiree at the Governor’s Mansion tonight, but this morning his mother had called from Raleigh and insisted that he and Hillary be there. First Family pictures including handsome Erik and pretty Hillary always got more media attention. Plus, Fancy liked the wholesome image of them all together.

He thought about refusing to go.

Being so far away from Laire wasn’t something he wanted when he treasured every stolen moment with her. But altercations with Fancy never went well—his mother was adept at getting revenge later, and with his lies about Vanessa hovering between them, he didn’t need more trouble. So he’d grudgingly said yes and agreed to drive himself and Hillary back to the city.

It was over four hours from Buxton to Raleigh, which meant he needed to leave by noon at the latest. As he hung up with his mother, he’d been frantic at the notion that after showing up at the Pamlico House every night to see Laire, he’d suddenly be a no-show without any explanation. Remembering that she sometimes worked in her father and uncle’s fish shop gave him the idea of trying to catch her there, and thank God it had worked.