In the Weeds (Lovelight #2)(22)

He’s frozen across the street, half on the curb and half off of it. Corduroy jacket. Open flannel beneath. Dark jeans and heavy work boots. He has a box from Ms. Beatrice’s bakery in his left hand, plain white with a thin piece of string in a pretty little bow on top. I focus there instead of his face, and watch as his hand tightens around the box.

I could laugh. He looks like every decadent thing I’ve ever indulged in. Flannel and scruff and a box of baked goods in his hand.

It makes sense that I’d run into him like this—an abandoned street with just us and the flower petals, my back breaking under the strain of all my exhaustion. It’s like this with Beckett and I, I’m starting to figure out. We keep hurtling into each other.

“Don’t tell Layla,” is the first thing he says to me. His voice is a low rumble, as rough as I remember. I bite my lip against a smile and his eyes roll up to the sky like he’s frustrated with himself before slanting them right back to me. He steps the rest of the way off the curb and strolls across the street.

I look at the box in his hand. “Only if you share.”

He huffs and clutches the box tighter. “I don’t think so.”

“You are not in a position to negotiate.”

“We’ll see.”

I press up on my tiptoes and try to get a peek through the thin plastic on top. “What does Ms. Beatrice make better than Layla anyway?”

He looks supremely uncomfortable at being caught. Or maybe that’s just the surprise of seeing his one-night-stand suddenly appear, again, in the place he lives. I wince.

“Sorry, never mind.” I rub at the headache that’s starting to form between my eyebrows. “Listen, I should have—“

“Shortbread cookies,” he tells me. He stops about three feet away from me and studies my rental. His eyes dart over my shoulder to the bed and breakfast, and then back to the car. He zeroes in on me with that singular intensity he always seems to carry, whether he’s licking a line of salt from my wrist or changing the tire on a tractor.

I swallow hard. Neither of those imagining help with the sharp pulse of heat low in my belly, a single forceful beat.

Beckett looks good.

He’s always looked good.

“She’s been making them for me since I was a kid. Layla’s don’t come close.” His eyes narrow into slits. “If you tell her I said that, I’ll deny it.”

I give him a solemn nod while fighting my grin. “Alright.”

He nods. “Good.” He considers my car again. I wonder if Jenny is watching from behind her desk and if this constitutes a phone tree emergency. I saw how this town handled Stella and Luka together. I’d bet this rental car they were the subject of several phone tree discussions. Beckett raps his knuckles once against the hatchback. “You’re in town?”

I nod. “Yep.”

“Stella didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“It would have been difficult for her to,” I say quietly. So much for easing into it. “Since I didn’t know I was coming until this morning.”

“You got a thing close by?”

By thing, I assume he means a profile or small business highlight. I do not, and I don’t especially want to get into my recent issues out here on the street. I certainly don’t want to get into them with Beckett, of all people. He already thinks my job is stupid, and I don’t want him thinking I came here as an elaborate excuse to see him.

I didn’t.

I shake my head and rub my hands over the outsides of my arms, wishing I packed a jacket that was a little bit thicker. I forgot March on the East Coast is just starting to creep out of winter, the mornings and evenings carrying a whisper of it still. I pull my thin wool coat a little tighter around me and rock back on my heels. Beckett’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything, the box in his hand creaking in protest at the way he’s gripping it.

“You need help with your bags?”

“What?”

“Your bags,” he says again, nodding towards the bed and breakfast. “You need help bringing them in?”

“Oh, no. Um,” if Jenny is watching right now, she is getting a master class in awkward and uncomfortable interactions. I hitch my thumb over my shoulder. “Jenny is full for the night. Apparently there is a kite festival down at the beach.”

Beckett’s brow furrows into a heavy line of confusion. “Kite festival? They have festivals for kites?”

I snicker. I thought the exact same thing. “Yeah, apparently.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What?”

He heaves another deep breath to the sky, his exhale a cloud of white that the wind carries away. I am exhausting him.

“Are you gonna stay down by the beach?” Inglewild is about a twenty-five minute drive from the coast, a long stretch of highway between here and there. More farmland, some outlet shopping, and a custard stand that I’ve had several recurring dreams about.

“I was—” I cannot tell him I planned on sleeping in my car in the alley behind the cafe. I look for an alternative, appropriate explanation of my plan. A plan which does not exist. “I was going to figure something out.”

He considers me quietly. I still can’t get over how different he is here compared to the man I met in Maine. He had been loose and comfortable, quiet but charming. His smiles had been easy and frequent. Here, now, standing a perfect three feet apart on the sidewalk, the streetlights and the moon paint him in shadows. He seems stiff—frozen and uncomfortable. He’s got a frown on every line of his face from the set of his eyebrows to the downward tilt of his full lips.