Page 48 of Apple of My Eye

The truck did too. I noted the blue color, maybe a Ford. Tinted windows prevented me from seeing the driver when it was close.

I broke out into a cold sweat. Sometimes Trevor would follow me home when I was out in town…

Forget this. I panicked and turned off to the right, two roads before Forest Grove. The truck followed. Another left, down Birch, heading directly into town, and he was still there behind me. My heartbeat raced until at last he fell back and turned before I hit Main Street.

When I parked in front of the Copper Cup, I sat there for a moment, hands on the wheel, gathering myself together, gulping shaky breaths. It was probably nothing, just imagining things. I got out and rushed to find my sisters.

The Copper Cup was its usual mid-morning busy place to be, with half the tables occupied, the smell of coffee and Harper’s fresh pastry coming from the kitchen. It hummed with people who had nowhere urgent to be, old men and couples leisurely sitting about. I spotted Sage behind the counter. She handed me a coffee, which was one of the many reasons I was grateful for her at this job.

“Thanks. Can I talk to you in a few minutes ?” I asked.

“Find a seat. I’ll be over.”

I walked around for the best spot, but I noticed the Forest Grove Gossip Gal printed out and tacked to the community board by the door, the way it had been ever since someone anonymously had been creating these. It was cute and reminded people to keep their humor about things, but I usually ignored it.

Someone had circled a section in pencil, which told me it had been up long enough for people to have opinions about it. I skimmed it until I realized it was all about me and Knox.

The heat that moved up my neck was not from the coffee.

I turned around. Three tables of women had gone a little too quiet, a little too quickly. I heard whispers and saw stares. They all must have read it and presumed to know about me and Knox.

Every single person in this room probably read the part about the truck and the hardware store receipts and jumped to conclusions, and now they were doing the small-town version of trying not to stare, which was essentially just staring with more effort.

I tore it off the board and brought it with my coffee to the counter.

“Sage, do you know who writes this?” I interrupted her with a customer.

She glanced at it, then at me, with the expression of someone walking carefully across uncertain ground. “Uh, no. I honestly don’t know.”

“She’s writing about me. About Knox’s truck.” I pressed my lips together, skimming it again. “Dale from the hardware store? I will never buy another bolt from that man again.”

“Dale did nothing. What’s got you so?—“

“I don’t want the whole town in my business, Sage,” I hissed, unable to rein in the edge in my voice. “Or walk into a room and have everyone staring at me like I’m the entertainment—exactly like they are now. I just want to live my life in private.”

Sage grew quiet, her eyes shifty. She knew something and wasn’t saying it.

“She’s rooting for you and Knox,” she chose words carefully. “Everyone is. Only because we care.”

“I don’t need rooting for. I need privacy.”

With that, I pushed off the counter, grabbed my bag, and headed for the door. I glanced back at her, at her hurt face, and wasn’t looking where I was going. The door opened the moment I planned to exit, and I walked right into a solid chest.

Knox caught me by the arms, with Ash a half step behind him, both of them in ranch jackets, mid-conversation about something that ended the moment I crashed into him and his eyes landed on me.

His hands steadied me, like the hero he always was. “Hey—” he started in, his smile smoldering at me in an instant.

I became acutely aware that the coffee shop had gone completely silent behind me, because people couldn’t mind their own business.

I stepped out of his hands.

His eyebrows drew together. “Daisy?—”

“Not here,” I said under my breath. “I can’t do this here.”

His jaw worked once. His eyes moved briefly over my face, reading it, cataloguing and deciding in the time it took most people to blink.

“Okay,” he murmured.