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ON MONDAY MORNING, Nash was working in his office and trying not to think about Britt.
He wasn’t entirely successful.
There was absolutely no reason for him to keep stewing over her. After all, nothing significant had happened Saturday night. He was glad he’d been able to help her, and it was gratifying that she’d been so sweet and appreciative. But it wasn’t like they were friends now.
Sure, she’d hugged him. Twice. And he couldn’t stop reliving how it had felt. That was Britt being Britt, however. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t about him. She wasn’t making a move on him or even behaving differently with him than anyone else.
He wasn’t special. Not to her.
And the stupidest thing he could ever do was take her seriously.
No matter how much he kept reminding himself of all these absolute facts, over and over again, he still caught himself feeling her small body against his. Hearing the way she’d laughed. Seeing that soft, almost shy expression in her brown eyes as she gazed up at him in the artificial light of the parking lot.
Shit, what the hell was he doing to himself?
He knew better than this.
When he caught himself drifting into another fantasy about an alternate ending to Saturday night instead of organizing his quarterly tax stuff for his accountant, he gave his head a firm shake and picked up his phone.
It was almost nine o’clock. Close enough. He needed something to distract him right now, so he called his grandmother.
He called her every morning at nine. She’d raised him on her own after his mom had taken off when he was a baby. She counted on the call. Waited for it. And they only ever talked for a few minutes, so it wasn’t a burden. In fact, it was one of the landmarks of his days.
“Hey,” he said when she picked up, smiling by himself in his office so she would hear it in his voice. “Good morning.”
“Morning, Timothy. How are you today?”
That was his name. Timothy Nashville Coble. But no one except his grandmother ever called him by his first name. “Fine. How ‘bout you? Did you sleep all right?”
They talked for a couple of minutes about the night of sleep she’d had and about the way her shoulder was bothering her this morning. Then he told her a couple of funny stories about customers who’d come in yesterday. He made a point of collecting a few anecdotes each day so he could entertain her and have something to talk about during the morning call.
He was starting to wrap up the conversation when she said, “Oh, before I forget. I wanted to go to the garden on Sunday, but I hate to make such a long drive. Is there any way you could take me?”
He assumed the garden she referred to was the big botanical garden about an hour away. “This Sunday coming up? Hold on. Let me check.” He pulled up the calendar and scanned over who was on shift, so he’d know if it was safe to take the day off. “I think that’d be okay. You’d go in the morning, right?”
“Yes. I’ll go to the early service at church, so we could leave no later than ten.”
He marked it on his calendar so he wouldn’t forget. His grandmother was only sixty-seven. She was relatively healthy and fully self-sufficient, so she only occasionally asked for his help. Mostly with driving her places an hour or more away.
She never took advantage of him, and she was the only person in his entire life who had always loved him. Never left him. He tried to never say no when she asked for his help.
“Got it down,” he said. “I’ll be happy to take you to the garden.”
“Thank you, honey. Oh, and the girls want to go too.”
He grew still, staring at the note he’d just written on his calendar. “The girls” were his grandmother’s two best friends, and they made any outing louder, more chaotic, and more high-maintenance than it would have been otherwise.
This wouldn’t be a quiet trip to the garden after all.
“That’s okay, isn’t it?” she asked sweetly. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” he said between his teeth. “Your friends are welcome to come too.”
“I knew I could count on you! You have a good day, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Grandma,” he muttered, scowling at the phone as he disconnected the call.
“You’re taking your grandma and her friends to a garden?”
The familiar female voice came from his half-opened office doorway, and it startled him so much he actually jumped in his chair.
Turning toward the door, he knew who he’d see. There was no way he could mistake that voice.
Britt. Standing outside the doorway but looking in. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was turned up in a little smile, and she wore a short, casual dress with a V-neckline that kept sending his eyes right to her chest.
She was beautiful. And undoubtedly laughing at him.
He narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer.
“That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, sounding even ruder than he’d intended.
She laughed. As always, she wasn’t the least bit cowed by his gruffness. “Okay. I won’t tease you. I really only wanted to give you this.”
He got up and swung the door open, surprised and confused by her words. “What?”
She pulled her right hand out from behind her back and offered him a coffee mug.
He took it automatically. Turned it in his hand until he could see the image and caption. It was an old man with a floppy hat and what was supposed to be a fishing pole in his hand, but she’d somehow marked over the original picture and changed the end of the rod to a hook, like the one he’d attached to the pole on Saturday night.
Next to the image, it said, Love a man with a rod.
He choked on a burst of amusement and lifted the mug closer so he could see how she’d changed the original image.
It was incredibly well done.
He couldn’t believe she’d done that for him.
Lifting his eyes, he saw that Britt was watching him closely. Almost nervously. Like she wasn’t sure how he would react.
He looked back down at the mug, and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Thanks,” he managed to say.
“You’re welcome. You don’t actually have to use it. I just wanted to...” She trailed off.
He set it on the shelf above his desk, moving over a ballcap and disorganized pile of books to make room for it. He wanted to thank her for real. He wanted her to know he appreciated that she’d thought about him—enough to make that kind of effort. But he wasn’t any good at putting those kinds of sentiments into words. So he muttered, “It’s nice.”
She’d relaxed, so she must have recognized that he actually liked the gift, despite his pathetic attempt to express it. “Okay. I’ve got to run, or I’ll be late for my seminar, but I just wanted to thank you one more time.”
He stared down at the floor. Then over to the mug she’d given him. He managed to grunt.
With a lilting little giggle, she left his office.
As soon as she was gone, he picked up the mug again so he could admire it some more.
***
IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT afternoon, Britt was back in Coble Coffee. She’d gotten through her seminar and some library research, so her work on campus was done for the day. Megan was working behind the counter, but Vivian had been writing on her dissertation from her laptop so Britt had joined her table when she’d stopped by for an herbal tea.
She might have also had ulterior motives, but she didn’t announce those when Vivian asked what she was doing this afternoon.
They chatted idly for a little while, and then Britt fiddled with her phone when Vivian got back into working on her chapter.
It was almost three, and she wasn’t planning to leave until then.
“What are you really doing?” Vivian asked after a couple of minutes, closing her laptop and holding Britt’s eyes.
“What do you mean? I told you. I’m just hanging out.”
“Are you, though? You seem awfully jittery for just hanging out.” Vivian was curvy with big blue eyes and a dimple on her chin. She might look velvet soft, but she was as smart and perceptive as they came.
Britt rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t in the habit of keeping secrets, and there wasn’t any real point in it. “Well, if you must know, I’m waiting until three.”
Vivian glanced at the time on her phone. “What happens at three?”
“Nash always takes a walk over to the duck pond.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I pay attention. He does it every time he works here all day. You really haven’t noticed?”
“No. Not really. I mean, I guess I knew he left for a while, but I didn’t know what he did. How do you know that’s what he does?”
“I’ve seen him there. At the duck pond.”
“Rick’s mom goes there every evening to feed the ducks,” Vivian said in a different tone, smiling affectionately.
“I know. That’s where you met her for the first time. You told me when it first happened. You said it showed you a different side of Rick.”
“You would remember all that, wouldn’t you?” Vivian shook her head with a smile in her eyes. “But, anyway, what does it matter about Nash?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just that I’m planning to go with him today.”
“What?” Vivian straightened up with a little jerk. “He invited you to go with him?”
“No!” Britt was talking in a hushed voice now, occasionally glancing over to the back office. “Of course not. I’m just going to invite myself.”
“Britt!”
“What? Why shouldn’t I? I told you. I want to get him to like me. And how can I do that if I don’t spend any time with him?”
“There are plenty of ways. You already gave him that mug this morning. He liked it, didn’t he? Megan said he gave it a place of honor on his shelf.”
“It’s not a place of honor.” There was absolutely no reason for Britt to flush, but she was anyway. “And I just talked to him for a minute this morning. I need more time than that.”
Vivian’s eyes scanned Britt’s face closely. “You’re sure there’s nothing more going on here?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve developed a crush on—”
“No! It’s not anything like that.” Britt met her friend’s eyes with absolute candor. She wasn’t lying or dissembling. She was telling Vivian the truth. “I really just want to get him to like me. It bothers me that he doesn’t.”
Vivian was quiet for a minute. Then she shrugged and opened her laptop again. “Okay. It all seems a little strange to me, but what do I know about it? I’m the one who manufactured a convoluted plan to date older men because I was so in love with Rick. Sometimes strange is what we have to do.”
Britt gave her head a firm nod, pleased that Vivian appeared to have accepted, if not understood. She waited two more minutes until her watch changed to three o’clock exactly.
A couple of seconds later, Nash was leaving his office. He said a few words to Megan behind the counter and then headed for the door.
Britt got up too. “Can you watch my bag for me? I don’t want to haul it around. If you need to leave, just have Megan stick it behind the counter.”
“No problem. Good luck.” Vivian smiled and waved, and if she was shaking her head again as she turned back to her laptop, she didn’t put her thoughts into words.
Britt had to jog to catch up with Nash, who was already halfway down the block.
“Hey!” She was smiling as she fell in step with him at last, feeling oddly victorious. Almost giddy.
He gave a twitch of surprise and frowned down at her. “What are you doing?”
“I’m walking to campus. I assume you’re on your way to the duck pond, so I figured I might as well walk with you.”
“Why?”
She blinked. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why walk with me?”
“Why not?” She shrugged, wondering why he always made being nice to him difficult.
“Because you’ve got to have better people to talk to than me, and I don’t need any company.”
“It’s not about needing company. It’s about being social.”
“I’m not social.”
She was starting to have trouble keeping a smile on her face. “I know that. But I figure that’s maybe because you’ve never had any practice at it.”
His eyes looked almost green today, and they were narrowed down at her. He had slowed his stride to match hers, but she figured that was probably instinctive rather than purposeful.
He didn’t look happy, but since he hadn’t argued further, she was going to take it as acceptance. “So tell me about your grandma,” she said with another smile.
“What?”
“Your grandma. I wanted to know about her. Does she live nearby?”
“Yes,” he replied gruffly, staring in front of him now as he walked. “She’s lived in town all her life.”
“You grew up here too?”
“Yep.” He paused for a moment before he added, “I moved away after college but moved back after my divorce.”
“I didn’t know you were married before.” She felt the weirdest quiver of something in her chest. Almost like jealousy. She brushed it away as irrational and unimportant. “Did your ex break your heart? Is that why you’re such an antisocial grump now?”
He shot her another narrow-eyed glare. “She didn’t break my heart. We got married too young. We grew apart.”
“So the divorce was mutual?”
For a minute, she didn’t think he’d answer. Then he muttered, “She left me.”
“Oh. Okay.” For no good reason, she felt kind of blah. She didn’t like the idea of some other woman breaking his poor heart and leading him to a life of loneliness.
“But I was an antisocial grump before I got married and while I was married.”
She was surprised into a giggle. “But you still call your grandma and take her on outings. You can’t be too much of a grump if you do that.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it. She raised me. She’s all the family I have.” He looked briefly surprised, like he hadn’t expected himself to say that.
Britt was surprised too, but her heart was doing something else now. It felt strangely achy. For him. “I didn’t know that either. What happened to your parents?”
Nash shook his head. She wasn’t sure he was going to reply and was trying to decide whether she should push him, but then he finally muttered, “I never knew my dad. No idea who he even is. And my mom never stuck around.”
“She left you? On purpose?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I don’t know how much on purpose it really is. She’s got problems with drugs. And alcohol. And nothing me or my grandmother ever tried could make a dent in the addiction. She’ll still come back occasionally and make a gesture toward bonding. But it never lasts.”
Britt had always been an empathetic person, and her eyes burned at the matter-of-fact, almost dismissive way Nash talked about what must have been incredibly painful. “I’m sorry. That must have been so hard for both you and your grandma.”
He gave one of his wordless grunts.
“I guess changing has to be your mom’s decision. Maybe she will one day.” She sighed. “But I get why you’re so close to your grandma then.”
Campus was only a mile away from the coffee shop, and they were already approaching the pond. Britt knew which bench he liked to sit on, since she’d noticed him there a few times over the past year, so she headed right for it.
They’d reached it but hadn’t yet sat down when Nash finally said something else. “What’s going on here?”
She frowned up at his face, wishing that beard didn’t hide so much of his expression. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“This?”
“This.” He made a vague gesture between them. “Being so nice and friendly.”
“Why wouldn’t I be nice and friendly? I’ve always been nice to you.”
“Sure. You’d stop by my office and pester me for a couple minutes. You wouldn’t do this.” He was tense. He looked almost suspicious. “So what’s going on?”
She’d completely forgotten about her planned strategy to get him to soften up. Instead, she was annoyed that he was being so obstinate and rude for absolutely no reason. “Nothing’s going on. I’m a nice person. I wanted to get to know you a little bit. It isn’t an attack. If people would be a little nicer to each other, then maybe the world wouldn’t be so crappy.”
For some reason, this provoked a real reaction out of him. His brows drew together, and his voice was soft and rough as he replied, “Is that right? That’s all it takes? People being nice, and all the problems go away?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t mean that.” She wanted to shake the man. Physically shake him. Even though he was almost twice her size. “I just meant—”
“Some of us aren’t pretty little blondes with easy lives who can get anything they want just by smiling.”
That was more than his normal rudeness. It was personal. She flinched back, since the angry words were a blow. Then she stiffened her shoulders, made the most of her height, and glared. “I can’t get anything I want. You don’t know me at all.”
“I know enough. What real problems have you actually had in your life? Your family loves you. They’re even funding your degree, so you don’t have to support yourself. You have a million friends. You can have any man in the world you decide you want. Where exactly are all your problems?”
She gasped, so angry now she was almost snapping her teeth. “And who exactly are you to talk? Tell me. Have white, straight, bearded assholes somehow become an oppressed group while I wasn’t looking? You should know better than to judge me based on nothing but the superficial. If you want to believe the world does nothing but attack you, then you go right ahead and stew in it. I choose not to do that. And it’s not because I’m a weak, fluffy, entitled princess. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe it takes more strength to see the good in the world than the bad? And that maybe you’re the weak one because you’ve decided to give up even trying?”
She was panting when she finished. She couldn’t believe she’d let him have it like that. She never fought. With anyone. She’d avoided conflict all her life. When there was even a hint of bad feelings, she usually went way out of her way to smooth things over.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so intensely angry. At anyone.
Nash was evidently shocked too. He stood stiffly, staring down at her. Not saying a word.
With a guttural sound of frustration, she muttered, “Forget it.” Then she whirled around and strode off as fast as her short legs could carry her.
In less than a minute, her anger had faded, leaving her with nothing but tears.
Damn it.
The heartless jackass had actually managed to make her cry.
She was sniffing and wiping her eyes and trying to see clearly enough to cross the road back into downtown when she heard fast, heavy footsteps behind her. Getting closer.
“Britt!”
It was Nash. She recognized his voice. He was running after her.
For no good reason, it made her cry even more.
“Britt, wait.”
She didn’t turn around, but she also didn’t cross the street when the light changed.
He caught up with her in a few seconds. “Britt, please. I’m sorry.”
She sniffed and kept her head turned away from him, mostly because she didn’t want him to see that she was crying.
“Shit,” he muttered, reaching out and lifting her head by the chin so he could see her. “Fuck it all, I made you cry.”
“No, you didn’t!” She didn’t even care that it was an obvious lie. She was mad at him again. “I’m not crying over you.”
“You’re not?” His face was weird. Damp from sweat but also kind of soft. His voice was soft too as he asked, “Then why are you crying?”
She choked on a sob and dug into her bag for a tissue. All she found was an old napkin, so she used it to mop up her face. “I’m crying because I’m mad at you.”
“Isn’t that still crying over me?” He gently pushed her hair back from her face.
“No, it isn’t! It’s entirely different.”
“Okay.” He cleared his throat. “Either way, I’m really sorry. You’ve done nothing to deserve what I said to you. I didn’t even mean it.”
“Yes, you did. You think I’m a spoiled, entitled little princess who knows nothing about the world and would crack in two at the first hint of a real problem. You’re probably right.”
“No, I’m not right,” he snapped. “You’re the most genuinely kind person I’ve ever known in my life, and there’s nothing stronger than that. Don’t you dare let anyone make you think otherwise.”
She blinked, that heavy weight in her chest lifting at his fierce defense of her. “But you’re the one who made me think otherwise.”
“So what? Don’t even let me make you think otherwise.”
She giggled and wiped at her face again. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“I know.” He shifted from foot to foot. “I really am sorry about earlier. I got defensive, so I lashed out. But you did nothing to deserve it.”
“Why were you so defensive?”
He shook his head and glanced away.
She thought about it for a minute until she could finally make sense of it. Then she gave him a little smile. “I get it.”
“You do?” he asked, suddenly stiff and wary.
“Yes.” Her smile got wider, brighter. “I was getting in! You were starting to like me, and you’re not supposed to like anyone!”
He blinked and looked slightly startled, but then he let out an odd guttural burst of sound. It took a few seconds for her to realize it was a laugh. “I wasn’t starting to like you,” he muttered, sounding more like his typical self.
“Yes, you were!” She clapped her hands, feeling so much better she could hardly remember why she’d been crying a few minutes ago. “You can’t hold out forever, you know. One day, you’re going to cave and admit that you like me!”
“Don’t count on it.”
She started across the street and was surprised when he came with her, falling in step beside her. “You wouldn’t be putting up such a fight unless I was getting close. Oh, I have an idea.”
“What’s that?”
She figured it was definite progress that he was talking to her now with mostly full sentences instead of wordless grunts. “You need to make up for being so mean to me, so you’ll have to invite me to go with you and your grandma and her friends to that garden.”
“What?” The question was hoarse and astonished.
“You heard me. You’ve got a lot to make up for, and those are my terms. Invite me, and then I’ll forgive you.”
He grumbled under his breath, saying something about how she was ridiculous.
But she knew him better now, so she took it for a yes.