Page 6 of In The Weeds
His frown deepens. “This contest means a lot to Stella. It means a lot to me, too. Our farm needs your help and I’d like for you to give us a fair shot at it.”
Another painful pluck at my chest.
“You think I wouldn’t?”
“You did run from me earlier,” he points out, the barest hint of a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. I hate that it sends a lick of heat straight down my spine. “I mean, you literally ran from the bakery when you saw me.”
I look down at my feet. Not my finest moment. But I didn’t know what else to do. “I know.”
A different kind of silence settles in the space between us.
“I’d like some reassurance,” he says, voice quiet. I watch his feet as he shifts his weight. “That you’ll stay.”
“And what would that be?” I ask in his general direction. When he doesn’t say anything in return, I release a breath and look up at him. He’s still frowning, that little line between his eyebrows deepening with it. “For you to be reassured?”
I could write him a haiku. Bake him a cake and sign it in buttercream frosting. I know he’s hesitant because of the way I left things, but it was a one-night—okay, a two-night—stand. A single weekend together.
I don’t owe him anything.
His eyes flash a shade darker. For the first time since he’s entered the room, he fixes his gaze intently on mine. Something twists and pulls between us. I feel it as sure as a touch against my arm. The small of my back.
“A promise,” he says.
“Would you like me to make a blood oath?”
He makes an unamused sound. I roll my eyes. “I’m here to do a job, Beckett. I wouldn't let anything get in the way of that. Stella deserves my best. I have no intentions of phoning it in.”
I’ve never done anything but my best. He might think my job is ridiculous, but I know what my influence can do for people. I can bring business to this farm—customers, attention, a cannonball of social activity.
“So you promise?”
I nod, suddenly tired down to my very bones. I want the rest of that cookie tray and the bed, in that order.
I want my ghost of one-night stands past to find the nearest exit.
“I promise. I’ll be there tomorrow. We can start over.”
“You won’t leave?” he asks and I’m reminded of a hazy gray morning, a storm rolling in off the coast. His arm stretched out beneath the pillows, the bare skin of his back and the dip of his spine. The gentle snick of the door as it closed behind me, my suitcase at my feet.
I take a deep breath in through my nose and push it out just as slow. It’s not his fault that he doesn’t believe me. Apparently, Beckett is the type to hold onto a grudge.
I grab another cookie from the tray. “I’ll stay.”
CHAPTER ONE
BECKETT
MARCH
“Doyou plan on coming back to bed?”
Her voice is raspy with sleep and she has a hickey at the base of her throat, a deep purple bruise that I can’t stop staring at. She stretches her arms above her head and the sheet slips half an inch, the swell of her breasts rising from beneath. I want to catch that sheet in my teeth and drag it down until she’s bare beneath me. I want a hundred other things, too.
I shake my head from where I’m perched on the desk in the corner of the room, taking another sip of coffee instead.
Restraint, I tell myself.Have some god damned restraint.
She smirks at me.
