Chapter Three

If you share myths with people, they will dream.

~Rill Babcock

“A freaking lie!” she yelled at her bedroom mirror the next afternoon. She could give Coop a million chances, and she’d come back for more. When it came to him, she lost all sense. Otherwise, why in the hell would she have kissed him the way she had or want him to strip her naked?

All night she replayed their conversation, her weakness in his presence, how she couldn’t stand her ground, and all night she wanted him. During her run, she thought of him. In the shower, she…well…she didn’t want to think about her fantasies in there. They’d just add ache to her misery.

A knock sounded on the door.

“Just a second.” She slipped on a pair of jeans and a lavender blouse, and pulled her hair into a ponytail then opened the door to Coop.

His gaze washed over her in sheer male appreciation, and her insides shimmied. “Come on in.”

“I’ll wait out here.”

“O-kay,” she said and eyed him over her shoulder as she retrieved her cardigan.

He propped a shoulder against the door and watched her move through the room, want and desire swimming in his eyes. She almost tripped from the intensity. No words could explain the thoughts and confusion playing a loop de loop in her mind, except Coop had grown up, gloriously so. “I’m ready.”

He stepped out of her way and closed the door. With a hand on her lower back, he walked with her down the stairs and outside before she could assemble a cohesive thought. “Why do you live here?”

“I don’t have to worry with shopping or fixing meals. Usually, I have the whole upstairs to myself.”

“Oh, you use my room, too?”

“When I can.” He grinned. “Felicia lets me know when guests are arriving so I can move my things before housekeeping gets to it.”

“Sweet deal.”

“It is. One day, I’ll build a house when I figure out where.”

The cool air seeped beneath her blouse, and she shifted to slip on the cardigan. Coop took it from her hands and held it up. “Thank you,” she said as she found the armholes.

Valentine’s décor lined the streets. Hearts adorned every streetlight, several red and pink streamers stretched across the road, high enough no trucks would hit them. Each storefront was decorated. Everyone geared up for the big day.

Coop grabbed her hand and moved across the street. Much to her dismay, she didn’t jerk her hand away. No, in fact, she liked it just as everything else Cooper Schmidt did.

They approached a white two-story building trimmed in pink. “Heathercream” was stenciled in Kelly green, shined from the board above the door. Two sets of pink wire tables and chairs covered the brick patio. A cutout of a six-foot ice cream cone with a cherry on top stuck to the wall between the door and grouping of windows. The modest store screamed notice me amongst the rest of the storefronts, which equally had their own appeal, but this store held more than the rest—it had heart.

“This is my first ice cream shop,” he said and opened the door.

Stepping inside, various aromas filled her lungs, mints, vanillas, baked cakes, and a few others. On the left, the ice cream display. Red bar stools, the swivel kind kids loved, filled the back wall, and on the right side, tables with red-vinyl cushions.

“It smells delicious in here.”

He didn’t seem to hear. He eyed the line and then the lone person behind the counter. Had someone called out sick? Having a travel agency, she understood the inadequate feeling of not having the right customer to worker ratio.

“Hi, Cass!” Coop waved at the dark-haired girl. “No school today?”

“No, sir. It’s closed for the rest of the week to get ready for this weekend.” She rung up a customer, accepted their money, and handed them their change. They promptly put the five-dollar bill and a few coins in the tip jar at the corner of the counter.

“Excuse me,” Coop said to her, and moved around the ten-people-deep line to behind the counter.

She waited, wondering how he’d handle the situation—yell, scream, or dive into helping. To her, it said a lot about a person.

An older man standing in line accepted the cone he ordered and tried a sample. “Great cream,” he said. “Worth its weight in gold.”

Coop chuckled. “You’re trying to butter up the owner.”

“I’m telling it like it is.” The man laughed on his way out the door.

“Have a good one,” Coop said and turned on the spigot over the industrial size sink on the back wall and washed his hands

“What can I get you?” he asked the next person in line as he snapped on plastic gloves.

He would help. Of course, he would. It was Coop.

As if he sensed her watching, he slid his eyes beyond the customer, held her gaze, and winked before drawing his attention to the person in front of him.

The door swung open and a group stepped inside, bringing a gust of cool air with them.

Lyse edged out of their way and found an empty seat near the wall. She really wanted to get into their conversation, find out why he disappeared years ago and figure out what this unexplained chemistry was that flowed between them. Sitting here watching him talk easily with his customers, confident, gave her more insight into the man he had become. She enjoyed sitting there, focusing on nothing but him and learning him.

Cass handed someone a cone, and released it before he had his hand tightly around it. Ice cream splattered onto the counter.

Coop handed the customer a towel for his hand, said a few words she couldn’t hear, and then turned his attention toward the nervous teen whose face turned red. She wiped the counter and fixed another one. This time she eyed the customer’s hand before she released it.

“On the house,” Coop said. He turned toward Cass, patted her shoulder, and whispered in her ear.

Cass beamed.

Coop was happy, in his glory behind the counter.

She knew Coop, knew the real guy behind the nerdy glasses, at least she thought so until he withdrew and left her with unbelievable emptiness. Still, his interaction with people was nothing short of amazing.

As teens, his family not having money had bothered him, made him feel inferior, and caused him to think he couldn’t be more. She never doubted it. Observing him in his first store, his product putting smiles on people’s faces, her heart swelled. She wanted to do the same in her mom’s shop and contribute to making people happy.

Dad did the same at Haynes Travel Agency. He helped clients with vacation arrangements and found affordable rates when the client didn’t think they had enough money to take a trip. While she enjoyed working for her father, she didn’t feel the excitement or fulfillment he did nor did she have the inner glow Coop possessed. Like right now, his grin consumed his face as he handed the next customer in line a banana split.

A bus stopped along the street and people filed into the store. “Oh, wow,” she muttered, went behind the counter, and repeated the act Coop had done to prepare to help customers. “Tell me what to do,” she said as she slipped on gloves.

The world stopped. That sounded so over the top, but it happened. When he turned toward her, his eyes dilated and moisture filled them. Had he thought she’d sit idle while he worked?

“Thank you,” he said and brushed a kiss on her cheek.

Cass, a girl she didn’t even know, came up behind her, and rested a cheek on her back. “You’re the best.”

The sweet sentiment filled her with a different kind of appreciation. For once, gratitude for what she chose to do, not what she should do, filtered into her life. At the travel agency, she received “thank yous” all the time, but this was different. “You’re welcome.”

Lyse scooped, drizzled chocolate, sprinkled candies, and anything else that came with serving ice cream. People were gracious, waited patiently even though she spilled ice cream on the counter, and had to clean it up before helping the next person. Her punishment for the mistake didn’t come in the form of a dirty glare. It came as a pat on the shoulder and a kiss on her cheek she couldn’t help but lean into.

By the time the space between her fingers hurt to the point where she didn’t think she could dish another scoop of ice cream, the shop had cleared.

“What happened to your help today?” Coop asked as he removed his gloves and tossed them into the trash.

“I messed up. I told the other scheduled girls I could handle the customers so they could get ready for the Valentine’s dance at school.”

He arched his brows.

“Remember the high school dance date changed because of your reunion.”

“That’s right,” he said. “You should have called Yaci, so she could have found help.”

Cass examined her feet. “I didn’t know I needed help until you walked in. Earlier, we had a steady line, but not a rush.”

“This close to Valentine’s Day we’re gonna be slammed. From now on, you let me or Yaci make the decision. We have your back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why aren’t you going to the high school dance?” he asked, his expression earnest. He truly cared.

“No need. I’m not interested in any one guy, besides I have my best friend David to hang out with.”

She sounded like Lyse at that age.

“You’re lucky.” He tapped a finger to Cass’s nose. “Don’t be foolish like me and let your best friend slip between your fingers.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Good question,” he muttered under his breath and turned toward Lyse and the ice cream counter. “How about some?”

She took in each of the flavors in the round containers. One in particular tempted her since she dished the first spoonful. “I want that one.” She pointed to the greenish color with mint and peanut butter chips, named “Lyse Find Me.”

****

Coop didn’t miss a beat. He couldn’t with Lyse inspecting him so intently. He had some explaining to do, lots of it. He grabbed two cones, filled them both with “Lyse Find Me” ice cream, and handed one to her. “Are you good?” he asked Cass.

Cass, a sweet girl about seventeen or eighteen years of age with a nature where she would do anything for anyone, smiled. “Yes.”

“You get slammed again, call Yaci.”

“Yes, sir.”

He winked and headed to a corner table, isolated from customers who hadn’t returned to the bus.

“I love your work, I…” Lyse broke off as she licked the ice cream and sat in the seat beside him. “Delicious! Peanut butter, chocolate, and mint explode in my mouth at once. “You remembered…” She sucked in her bottom lip and blinked. “…my favorite flavors.”

“I did.” The grin on her face undid him. He adored it.

She swiped her pretty, pink tongue across the ice cream again, and he wished she’d swipe it somewhere else.

He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Um, you were saying.”

“I work at my father’s travel agency in Nashville. Next door is my mom’s quilting shop. Dad wants to sell it or lease it, but I can’t. I just can’t.”

His heart dropped, fell to the pit of his stomach. If he didn’t have a cone in a hand and holding her hand with the other, he would pop himself in the head. No wonder her father refused to give it up. The deed to the property was in Carl Haynes’ name, the previous owner Alexus Shawl. Neither he, nor his marketing department connected the two.

“You know how I am about superstitions, legends, myths, I don’t like going against them.”

“I remember. Sometimes, though, you have to do what your heart says instead of doing what you think you should.” He referred to her hang up on the FIND ME myth. Even with the chemistry flowing between them, he feared she’d give him up if she found someone with the candy.

“You’re right. I always do the right thing, what I’m supposed to do, and with the candy I branch out some, but…” She regarded his ice cream shop. “I loved working behind the counter, talking and laughing with your customers.”

“Don’t you interact with clients at your business?”

“This is different.” She took another lick of ice cream and eyed him around her cone as she did. “Have you ever considered opening a store in Nashville and having a partner?”

Did lady luck just dump at his feet? “I’ve thought about it.”

“This is the type of business I’d like to have in my mom’s store.”

“Really?”

“Maybe, possibly, once I know why you withdrew from life.” She bit into her cone with more force than he thought necessary.

He trashed the rest of his in the bin near the table and sighed. “Around you, I couldn’t concentrate.”

She hesitated then threw her cone in the trash, too. “You’re referring to why you withdrew. I need more info.”

“I had to figure out a way to make enough money to pay for college.”

“You worked weekends.”

He nodded. “Yes. The money I earned didn’t come close to how much I needed. My parents couldn’t help. So I abandoned my friends, well you, and bought supplies with my savings and built a lab in my parents’ basement. The experiments I conducted, I wrote about, and they were published.”

“Impressive, but I’m not surprised. You always were bigger than life.”

He shook his head. “Really?” Then held up his hand. “Never mind answering.” Today, he needed to focus on what he did to her and why, not her boosting his ego. “I regret not telling you my reasons, but I was embarrassed.”

“Why though? We were friends. I would have understood anything you had to say.”

“You think so? What if I told you, you were a distraction? That I dreamed, thought, and did everything for you?”

Her mouth dropped open, and she looked between his eyes. Time stretched on until she finally closed her mouth and bit her lower lip. “I didn’t know.”

“I kept it from you.”

He let that sink in a beat and was about to change the subject when she asked, “Why did you say you were okay with me going to the dance with Wally when you clearly weren’t?”

“I had to find myself before I explained my thoughts to you.”

She rested back in her chair. “So we lost years because you wanted money?”

He cringed. The manner in which she phrased his motivation belittled what he knew she held close to her heart. Family. Friendships.

“No, I did it for my family. That day…” He shook his head feeling the sting when her face lit up about going out to dinner. “I realized by being in the picture I prevented you from enjoying life more. You wouldn’t have gotten dinner.”

“You’re kidding me,” she growled. “You said okay cause you thought I wanted something materialistic?”

He was nose-diving. “No.”

“Let me tell you something, buddy, best friend.” She said it in such a low stern voice, he had a hard time hearing her, but her anger was clear. “That evening,” she gritted out between clenched teeth, “was the worse night I’ve ever had. I was attacked!”

“Wh-a-t?” He said, feeling a stab to his chest.

“If you hadn’t been hiding in the bat cave, you would have known!” Tears fell from her eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking by coming here. I knew better. This godforsaken town and their fantasy candy I believed in, trusted, just like I did you. I’m done. I can’t do this.” She bolted out the chair and out of the store.

The life force sucked out of him. He darted out, ignoring the stares from the remaining customers and Cass. He caught up with Lyse as she passed the pink tables and rounded the corner to a grassy area, and grasped her arm. “Talk to me.”

Black marks streaked her face. Her nose turned so red it resembled the faded red heart tied to a pole a few feet from them.

She didn’t move. With her arms folded under her breasts and chin tucked downward, she looked beaten.

Another one of his screw-ups. “Damn, I’m so sorry.” He tugged her against his body. Thankfully, she went willingly, but didn’t move her arms to touch him. “God, please forgive me. I thought I did the right thing. I wanted to get my life straight and have you look at me the way you did Wallace.”

She eased away and searched his face. “Stupid, stupid man. For a genius, you have the IQ of a peon.”

He’d give her that. “Did he hurt you?”

“No. He didn’t.” Her breathing leveled out. “He scared me, and I wanted you, wanted to tell you everything, but you weren’t there.”

He remembered. He’d been so deep into his experiment he didn’t come up for air. That was the night he discovered a new type of ice cream. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? We saw each other countless times before graduation.”

She pulled her lips inward. “I was embarrassed by my actions. I should have told him no immediately.”

He cupped the side of her face and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs.

“I knew better than to go with him.” She sniffled. “He wasn’t the one I wanted to be with. Never was. But when you said go, I…went.”

His thumbs stopped moving. The air sparked. “Really?” He needed to come up with another word, but she kept surprising him at every turn, and his mind went blank with a different response. “You wanted to go with me? Not because we were each other’s backup?”

She covered his hands with hers, sucked on her bottom lip, and nodded. “Yeah, but I still have this issue with FIND ME.”

“So, you’re not letting your heart lead the way? The myth tells who you should be with?”

“Before the myth, I did. Once I heard it, I couldn’t let go.”

He crushed his mouth to hers. All the flavors he loved ignited the kiss from a gentle one to demanding. She whimpered, moved closer, and ground her leg into his hardening length. On the street with everyone to see, he needed to steer them to somewhere private so he could show her with his body she shouldn’t believe in some damn myth. “We should head to the B&B.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I can’t. I have to pursue the myth. I have to find Rill.”

Her words had the force of a gut punch. “He lives on top of the hill at the end of Cupid Hearts Drive.”

“Where we used to ride our bikes?”

“Yes.” He paused. Before she talked to his uncle, he wanted to have a clean slate. “I have more to tell you.”

“More?” She asked in a monotone voice.

Hell, he hated he’d given her so much pain. He longed for a time when she didn’t look at him in disbelief. Maybe it would happen today right after he confessed. “Uncle Rill—”

“Rill Babcock is your uncle?”

“Great uncle, yes. You knew that. The day I introduced you to him, I said so.”

“In elementary school? You recall what you said?”

“I do. He’s my cool uncle and I introduced him to my best friend, so yeah, I remember.”

“Oh.”

Though her posture wasn’t rigid, she had an edge about her that she wanted to flee.

How could he blame her? He wanted to escape himself. “Uncle Rill lied about the FIND ME story.”

Her jaw dropped open.

At every turn, every possible path to erase the friction between them, he botched it.

When he’d questioned Uncle Rill about the verity of the story, his uncle never let on he lied. Coop knew the truth. No evidence supported the myth. If it had been true, surely someone somewhere would have known. For a brief moment, when Uncle Rill had come to his house the day after he told Lyse the story, he let himself believe.

Rill had given both him and Lyse a box of candy hearts that day. If the myth had been true, then the Valentine’s heart fairies or whatever the hell they were would have brought him and Lyse the FIND ME candy. Since they didn’t, it fermented his disbelief in all myths. He trashed his box.

“Why make up a lie?”

“He read me like a book, knew you talking to Wallace bothered me. Not that I said anything, I didn’t have to, Rill saw the two of you on the street.”

“We didn’t do anything.”

“Ah, but your eyes said all. You looked at him the way I did you.” There, his feelings were out in the open.

Her solemn features didn’t give anything away. He didn’t know if he got through to her. If she understood his frame of mine or if she thought he was a flaming lunatic. “Will you go to the dance?”

“I have a lot to think about.” Without a blink or a smile, she turned on her heels and headed toward the B&B.

****

Two days had come and gone, and she wasn’t anymore sure what she needed or wanted. Coop had been scarce since she left him at Heathercream. She’d asked Felicia about him, and received a shoulder lift with, “He’s busy on last minute details for the reunion.” Her gnarly attitude, opposite of her friendly one previously, left a lot to be desired. Evidently, her brother had confided what transpired between them.

Other than talking briefly on the phone to her father, and in great lengths with Natalie to check on Scotty, and having to endure her friend’s bad sense of humor when she called her PIP every few minutes, she hadn’t chatted with anyone else. The streets crowded with people eager to see the famous Valentine’s town, yet she didn’t see the first classmate. Not that she cared since the PIP situation kept occurring in her mind, thanks to her obnoxious friend. She didn’t feel like dealing with whatever name one of her classmates came up with if they remembered. Hopefully, the graduation incident would be forgotten.

At six tonight, she’d either let her heart lead the way or she’d put her faith in a myth. She’d postponed talking to Rill. Figured, why bother since he lied. But here she was, turning off of Cupid Hearts Drive and onto a grassy driveway with Rill Babcock’s name on the mailbox.

The long, windy driveway crossed a small stream, and ended at a rustic log cabin. Trees surrounded the place. Field grass covered the yard. The place resembled a scene out of Deliverance more than a friendly man’s home. She parked the car and climbed out.

“I wondered when you’d grace my doorstep,” a husky voice boomed.

She started. On the porch, a balding man stood with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. A flannel shirt covered his potbelly. “Hi, Rill.”

“Come on in. No sense standing out here in the dropping temperature.” His tenor was deeper than she remembered.

She tugged on her sweater, glad she’d decided to wear jeans and tennis shoes today. His little oasis seemed a little cooler than the rest of Heather Ridge. She walked up the stairs and followed him inside the house. The scent of wood and bacon assaulted her senses, but not the rancid odor of cigarettes. She scanned the room searching for a sign he still smoked.

“Stop looking. I grew tired of Coop’s constant nagging and haven’t taken a drag in years. Man, that boy can be a little old lady at times. Worse than my wife was.”

She grimaced, recalling how his family died and took in the large room. A kitchen to the left and a living room on the right. Framed pictures covered the walls.

“I’ll fix us some tea.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I should thank you for visiting an ole bird like myself.”

She smiled and took in the picture of a much younger Rill, a woman, and a boy. By the time she and Coop hung out at his store, he’d had lost his family in some sort of accident.

“You’re scanning the depressing wall. Check out the fun one.” He pointed across the room.

She moved over there and gazed at the picture of a little girl in pigtails with a boy tugging on them, both kids laughed. Her heart squeezed. “It’s me and Coop.”

“Keep looking.” He edged closer and touched a frame. “This is the picture of you two in the school play. And right here,” he slid his finger to the next one, “at the playground.” He chuckled. “You two were inseparable.”

They were. Feeling the pang of missing what she and Coop once had, she bit her lip to fight tears and spotted another picture. Coop walked toward the camera, his mouth taut. Eyes sad. In the background, she and Wally talked.

As if her feet buried in the sand and a tidal wave rushed to shore, the surge—the pain etched on his face—smacked and enveloped her, temporarily taking her oxygen. “Why…” She managed to gasp in some air. “Do you have this picture up?”

“So, when you came to see me, you’d know.”

She rubbed her hands over her wet face. “You knew I’d come?”

“One day, yep sure did. Took longer than I thought.” He waved a hand to follow him. “Come on, let’s have some tea.”

She sat in a wooden chair opposite him and retrieved a mug from the glass-topped table. “You know why I’m here?”

“I assume it’s because of the candy hearts.”

“Yes.” She sipped the hot tea. It didn’t lessen the sting of figuring out how to ask why he’d lied. “I recently learned the FIND ME story isn’t true.”

He drank some tea. “Says who?”

“Your nephew.”

“That boy. He’s so filled with science, he can’t see past the nose on his face.”

“So, it’s true?”

“Honey, I can tell you what I know. It’s for you to decide what you believe.” He studied her a long, powerful moment. “My nephew means a lot to me. He’s the one in this God forsaken world who checks on me and my sister, and her husband. If you hurt him—”

“Hurt him? He hurt me.”

“Did he?” Rill arched a brow. “From where I’m sitting, it was the other way around. He always did what you asked. You saw the pictures. They don’t lie.” He swallowed a mouthful of tea on a slurp. “When he walked into my store after I snapped the last picture, his pain tore at my soul, so I divulged the story I hadn’t planned on telling anyone. That night, Cooper and I processed the pictures. When I snapped the shot, I wasn’t after a picture of my nephew in pain. I wanted an image of you in his arms. I saw the two of you, cozy on the street and not caring who watched.”

True. They hadn’t cared who observed them snuggling. They didn’t do anything out of line but be perfectly comfortable with one another. “I had stumbled on the sidewalk, and Coop caught me.”

“Well, that’s the picture I wanted, but the shutter stuck. When I got it working, I raised the camera and clicked. Call it a momentary lapse in judgement. I didn’t peer through the viewfinder to see the situation had changed.” He released a sigh-snort. “The next day, I gave you a bag of candy hearts.”

She’d been upset about not finding Coop she hadn’t cared about anything. “I didn’t look at them.”

“Obviously.”

“How can it be?”

“I’ll answer that if you tell me why you’re here?”

She wasn’t used to him being so snarky. “Recently, I received a box of Valentine’s candies. In the box was a FIND ME heart.”

“You don’t say.” His eyebrows narrowed, and he ran a hand along his neck.

“I came here to learn how I’m supposed to know who my soul mate is.”

“Only two FIND ME candies are manufactured each year. You have to find the other person who has it.”

More and more she wondered if receiving the special candy was a setup. “Does Coop have the other one? Did you arrange this?”

“I never took part in the pairing of a FIND ME candy couple. I do know who they are, but I’m not privy to give out the information. I will tell you this, the box of candy I gave Cooper the day after I told you the story—”

“Yes,” she rushed out.

“It contained the piece of candy. I know because he threw it at me. Did you have the other one?”

She shook her head and lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. The neighbor’s dog ate it.”

“Hmm. For someone who blabbed to the whole town about the myth, you didn’t give it much stock.”

“Coop withdrew. That day, I needed to talk and couldn’t locate him. I was too mad to look at the print on the candies.” Her voice grew deeper and more impatient, but he put her on the defensive.

“Hey.” He showed her his palm. “I’m not upset with you for telling everyone. You brought me a lot of business.” He chuckled. “And this town made some serious money. Tell me, are emotions or myths driving you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Here’s what I’m gonna do. The company sent me an extra shipment this year by mistake. Since you don’t know who to trust or what to believe, I’ll get some kids to bag them and pass the boxes out at the reunion, so I’m not involved. If the FIND ME candies are in there, then you have your answer.”

“But what if no one receives any?”

“If that happens, then no one in the room is meant for you.” He paused. “I have one question; you don’t need to answer to me, but to yourself. Is this what you want, to let a piece of candy decide who is right for you?”

After a bear hug from Rill, Lyse left his house more confused than ever. The pictures on the wall flashed in her mind like a movie reel. Fun, happiness, and smiling then the hurt in Coop’s features. The picture of herself surprised her most. She hadn’t been looking at Wally, but at Coop, her expression as troubled as his.

She rubbed her fingers over her chest in response to the familiar pain. She’d made a mess of things. Telling Wally she’d go to the dance topped her “dumb list”. If she’d refused, none of this would have happened. The fault of her and Coop’s declining friendship wasn’t his alone.

****

“I said no!” Coop stood beside the round table in his office, glaring at his marketing team. “No more probing the Nashville area. If Mr. Haynes wants to open a store then let him come to us.”

Almost as if the angelfish stood at attention on a slant, they eyed him. He shouldn’t have yelled.

“But, sir,” Yaci said from a chair off to the side. She usually hung close in case anyone needed anything or to fill in information.

“Find another ‘must-have’ spot. Gaining what we want at the expense of others is not who I am.” He pinched his lips to stop from confiding too much to his associates. He shouldn’t have let the acquisition go this far. If Lyse ever found out…he ended his train of thought. She would find out because he planned to come clean. She would learn how he manipulated her. By him doing so, she was in his life. Something he wanted down to his core. For that, he would never apologize.

“Lyse Haynes said she liked the idea,” Yaci said, breaking into his thoughts. “She loves your store and the ice cream.”

Someone overheard his and Lyse’s conversation on the sidewalk the other day. He wished people didn’t run their mouths so much in this town. Everyone knowing everything about each other’s business grated on his nerves.

“One last time, and I’m not repeating myself again. No!” He grabbed his papers from the table, stuffed them in a folder, and into his briefcase. “I have a reunion. Have a good evening,” he said and exited the room before anyone had a chance to respond. He jogged down the stairs, and peeked into the ice cream shop.

Cass rung up costumers as two other employees scooped ice cream. Good, everything was under control. He exited the rear entrance to the parking lot and climbed into his Lexus.

Hot and bothered from the discussion over the Haynes’ space and more hot and bothered because of the woman who controlled it, he wanted to spit nails. It’d been two days since they’d spoken. She didn’t knock on his door and didn’t stop by the ice cream shop. She didn’t do anything so they could see one another and talk.

He started the car and pulled out into traffic on Heart Avenue.

Working across the street from the B&B, he kept one eye on the window and one on the road. Okay, maybe both eyes stayed glued to the window waiting for her to walk out. In passing, he’d asked Felicia if Lyse planned to check out early. Learning she hadn’t was a relief, but he still didn’t know if she would come to the reunion.

Traffic crawled. At this rate, he would be lucky if he got there on time. The committee probably had everything under wraps anyway. After the initial meetings, they had done most of the work and only contacted him if they needed funds or if any problems arose.

A couple minutes’ ride turned into a half hour by the time he reached the school. He grabbed a few boxes out of the backseat, took them inside, and returned for his suit.