Part of Your World(43)

He shrugged over his frying pan. “Couldn’t make a living out of it. The village is too small.”

I smiled. “You could go bigger. Ship your pieces. I know people who would pay thousands of dollars for this stuff to furnish their cabins.”

I could see by his smile that he took the compliment. I watched him add a jar of home-canned tomatoes to the pan.

“Do you cook the breakfasts?” I asked.

“I do. I’ve been trying to get you to stay for one. Looks like I’m finally getting what I want.” He gave me a triumphant grin.

Both of us were smiling. We’d been smiling since the minute we were alone and allowed to do it.

“This was the best surprise,” I said, almost to myself.

He beamed down at his pan. “You know, you can come whenever you want,” he said. “I want you to.”

“Whenever I want?” I teased. “I don’t want to show up and you’re not alone.”

“I’ll always be alone when you show up. I’m not seeing anyone else.”

I didn’t respond to this. It wasn’t my business if he was seeing other people—even though the thought of it did bother me a little bit.

Was it weird that it bothered me? It should have been, right? I shook it off.

“Are you going to sneak into my room tonight?” I asked.

“I think it’s better if you sneak into mine,” he said, talking to his frying pan. “Your friend is sharing that bathroom. Plus, we can make more noise over here.” He grinned.

“Why did you open the B & B? I thought you said it was closed for the season.”

He went quiet for a long moment. “I had to. Amber—my mom—is selling the house.”

I froze. “What?”

“She’s selling it,” he said. “To buy a bike shop in Florida. I have the summer to raise fifty thousand dollars for a down payment on the property so I can try to buy it. If I can’t raise the money…” He paused. “I have to raise the money.” He nodded at the garage. “I need to finish all this to sell at the swap meet. And I had to open the house early to convince her to wait.”

I shook my head. “But…how can she do it? It’s your family’s house.”

I couldn’t even imagine if Royaume was being taken from my family.

Suddenly I could see the strain around his eyes. He must be totally overwhelmed. I looked around at the huge backlog of furniture. It was a warehouse full, and none of it was complete. There was no way he could do it all. Not while he was running the bed-and-breakfast at the same time.

“I’m so sorry, Daniel.” I didn’t know what else to say.

He just smiled. “It’ll work out. This weekend helps. I got most of the rooms booked. And I get to see you.”



I stayed the whole night in Daniel’s loft. I texted Gabby and Jessica and told them I was going to sleep so they wouldn’t check on me when they got in. Then I locked my room and came back to the garage and slept with Daniel—well, our version of sleeping, which didn’t involve much sleeping at all, actually.

When he got up at 5:45 to put coffee on in the house, I snuck back in with him and went to my room.

I loved spending time with him, just hanging out with him. It was so easy and fun.

He didn’t feel like his age. Maybe he’d had to grow up fast, like I did.

Well, I’d grown up fast in some ways—and I hadn’t in others. I was college bound by seventeen, but I didn’t have a first kiss until I was twenty. I didn’t lose my virginity until I was twenty-four. I didn’t really get to do the teenager thing. Guess I was getting to do it now though, sneaking out of the house like a kid.

I met the girls in the dining room for breakfast at nine.

“Oh, my God,” Gabby said from her seat at the table when I walked in. “You missed out. We had so much fun last night.”

I poured myself a coffee from the station Daniel had set up on the buffet table against the wall. “Really?” Me too.

“Yeah, so we went to this VFW, which was kind of ratty, but it was the only thing that was open. This guy started hitting on us and he pulls out this guitar and sings ‘More Than Words’—I died.”

I choked on my coffee and spit it back into my mug. “Was it any good?” I asked, still laughing, wiping up my chin.

Jessica scoffed. “It was as bad as the food at that restaurant we ate at last night,” she muttered. “What did you eat for dinner?”

I took a seat and shrugged. “The guy made me a sandwich.”

He actually made me pasta Bolognese using tomatoes he’d grown and canned. It was amazing. I was having a very different weekend than they were…

Daniel came in balancing three plates on his tattooed forearms. We made split-second eye contact before we looked away from each other.

The chemistry between us was off the charts. He made my body react just by being in the room, and it occurred to me that this would be true even if we’d never touched each other. Even if I had been here on a couple’s weekend with Neil and this was the first time I’d ever met him, I would have noticed it. It was like a pupil shrinking under a light, totally involuntary.

He started setting French toast in front of us.

God, he looked good. He was wearing an apron. His hair was sort of messy and looked effortlessly adorable. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any cuter . . .