“Just fine,” Will said, not looking at his brother. “Yours?”

  “I…you know what?” He sounded sour, and Will honestly didn’t have the energy to deal with him tonight. “I don’t like living there alone. You didn’t have to move out so soon.”

  “You’ll be married soon,” Will said. He didn’t owe Travis any explanation. True, he’d packed his things and moved out in secret, without talking to Travis about it at all. But again, Travis wasn’t his father or his keeper, and Will didn’t need his permission to move. He’d spoken to Daddy, and no one else needed the cabin.

  “Not for two more months,” Travis said, a growl in the words.

  Will bumped down the dirt road. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “Why did you move out so soon?”

  “Were you just assuming I would be the one moving out?” Will glanced over to Travis.

  “I mean, I don’t—no. I thought we’d talk about it.” He frowned at Will, who quickly switched his gaze back out the windshield.

  “Yeah, well, all you were doin’ was yellin’ at me about Gretchen. I didn’t feel like talking about anything.”

  “I—” Travis started, plenty of punch in that single-letter word. He closed his mouth and breathed in through his nose. “How is Gretchen?”

  “Fine, I’m assuming,” Will said. “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “You’re assuming? Did you two break-up?”

  “No,” Will said, when he could’ve easily said, not yet.

  “When’s the last time you saw her?”

  “What day is it?” Will asked.

  “Will,” Travis said, heaviness in his voice. “She’s your girlfriend. You have to make her a priority,”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Will said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “I already said I don’t want to talk about her.” He drove past Clarissa and Spencer’s cabin and parked in front of his.

  He threw Trav a dirty look and got out of the truck. His door slamming sounded like an angry exclamation point, and so did Trav’s. “Will,” he said, jogging after him.

  “Travis, go on home,” Will said.

  “You should go see her,” he said, coming up the steps right behind Will.

  “I don’t need to be lectured tonight.” He barreled into the house. He’d lock himself in his bedroom if he had to. Pressure built in his chest, and he suspected he needed to let it all out before it made him explode. So no retreating to his bedroom.

  He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. He tossed one to Travis, along with one of his hottest glares.

  “You might as well say it,” he said. He’d known Trav for his whole life. He knew when Travis had something on his chest, and he knew when he needed to let him scream his frustrations into the sky. He wouldn’t leave until he spoke his mind anyway. Might as well get it over with.

  Will took a long drink of his water and recapped the bottle. “Are you mad at me?”

  “You know what?” Travis asked. “Yeah, I am. You moved out without saying a single thing to me. How do you think I felt when I realized you weren’t coming home at night, and then that you had a whole new home and I was all alone?”

  “Is this about you or me?”

  “It’s about me,” he said. “Right now. We’ll get to you.”

  “Can’t wait,” Will said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. He met Trav’s eyes, and thankfully, he and Trav could communicate with just their eyes.

  “You didn’t have to move out,” Travis said. “I would’ve told you that if you’d talked to me.”

  “I know that place is for you and Shay,” Will said. “I saw you two there, a couple of months ago. I knew then that she’d come live on the farm with you, and I’d need to find somewhere else to live.”

  “But not for two more months,” Travis said. “And I didn’t know that. Shay and I just barely talked about where we’d live.”

  Will finished his water and waited while Trav drank too. “I didn’t mean to lecture you about Gretchen,” he said.

  Will nodded, because he did love his brother. “I shouldn’t have moved out without talking to you.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Travis’s gaze flew in that direction. “That’s Shay.”

  “Let her in,” Will said. “I’ll find something for dinner.”

  Travis went to open the door, and Will rustled up some frozen chicken cordon bleu from the freezer. He had a bagged salad, and that would have to do for tonight.

  He set the oven and then finally turned toward the front door. Shay was just starting to move away from Travis, and relief filled Will. He didn’t want to watch his brother kiss his fiancée, not when Will hadn’t even texted with Gretchen that day.

  He probably needed to go see her. It was Thursday, so she was real busy with her daddy tonight, but he could ask her to dinner tomorrow. Even just taking her one of her favorite meals would count, and Will didn’t mind his time in his truck if he got to see Gretchen at the end of the drive.

  “Hey, Will,” Shay said, smiling at him as she walked through the living room.

  “Howdy,” he said. “I have chicken cordon bleu. It’ll be about forty-five minutes.”

  “That’s fine,” Travis said, following Shay and slinging his arm around her as she sat at the bar. “Right, baby?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You don’t have to feed us at all, Will.” Shay had always been kind to him, and Will did his best to smile at her. She saw the effort, and her smile slipped. After a quick glance at Travis, she asked, “How’s the barn coming?”

  “Great,” Will said.

  “Oh, you know what?” she asked. “I got those new running packs. I should’ve brought you one.”

  “I’ll come by this weekend,” he said, turning when the oven beeped to alert him that it had come to temperature. He slid the frozen chicken into the oven and started for the couch.

  “You’re still running, right?” she asked.

  Will yawned, thinking of his four-thirty alarm. “Yes, ma’am.” He collapsed on the couch, his eyes falling closed.

  Travis said something, but Will didn’t have any more brain cells to converse. They could stay or go, talk or not. He didn’t care. He just wanted to sleep until dinner.

  When he slept, he didn’t have to think about Gretchen. He didn’t have to beat himself up for being who he was—and that he’d never be the man she wanted him to be.

  All he did was dream of a cabin in the woods, with trees that had leaves that turned yellow in the fall. There were two deck chairs there, and Will had the distinct feeling in the dream that he’d built them for him and his wife.

  They sat on the edge of a river that flowed out of a natural spring and into a pond down the hill a little way. Trav and Shay lived by the pond, but Will and his wife had the spring.

  The woman came toward him, carrying a couple of glasses of sweet tea, and Will looked up at her, his heart filled with love and belonging.

  Then the woman disappeared, and he never could get a good look at her face. He sipped the sweet tea, alone in the deck chairs, with the yellow leaves and the bubbling spring.

  Always alone.

  The following week, Will pulled into the parking lot at Sweet Water Taffy. He hadn’t been here in weeks, though he had found his courage and seen Gretchen last weekend. Mama had asked about her on Sunday, telling Will to invite her to their Sabbath Day dinner.

  He hadn’t done it yet. He didn’t get to see her all that often, and when he did, he didn’t want to share her with his family.

  The shop looked good from the front, and Will parked and went toward the glass door. It opened, though the shop wouldn’t re-open to the public until tomorrow. Will’s heart pounded as he went inside, much like it had the first time he’d come here.

  Now, he wasn’t nervous about buying too many treats and what they’d do to his blood sugar, but he was still anxious to see Gretchen.

  She lifted her head from where she studied something at the small, two-person table right beside the front window. “Hey,” she said, her voice clear and bright.

  Will relaxed the way he always did around her. “Hey.”

  She stood and embraced him, and that one hug might’ve been the thing to push him over the edge and fall all the way in love with her. That thought, and those feelings, sent his pulse to racing again, and he stepped away.

  “Take me on a tour?” He looked over to the familiar candy cases. “You’ve got chocolates in there.”

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “Jon’s been in the candy kitchen all day.”

  Will watched her as she spoke, and he’d never thought she liked Jon for more than a friend and employee. Will didn’t have a problem with Jon. It was Jon who didn’t like Will.

  “He’s in the back?” he asked, glancing toward the swinging door that led back into the two candy kitchens.

  “Yes,” Gretchen said, reaching to close her book and pick it up. She didn’t reach for his hand, and he waited for her to lead the way toward the back of the retail space and around the register.

  They went through the swinging door, which squeaked and annoyed Will. For some reason, he wanted to be here as much as he didn’t. He told himself that Sweet Water Taffy was extremely important to Gretchen, and he could swallow his discomfort for the next few hours.

  For her, he absolutely could.

  Her candy kitchen hadn’t been touched by the flames, but they’d ripped a lot of it out as the smoke had gotten into the walls and had to be cleaned out.

  “It’s all the same appliances,” she said. “And the tables. Only the walls are new.”

  Will swept his eyes around the kitchen, seeing it as it had been before. “It’s great,” he said, slipping his hand into Gretchen’s.

  “The office,” she said, taking him past the short hallway where he’d kissed her weeks and weeks ago when he’d brought her lunch.

  He’d been in her office too, but it was much brighter now. “Wow,” he said. “This is great.”

  “I had them put in the bright white,” she said. “And I bought that gray desk.”

  She’d also added a row of three filing cabinets, the middle one holding a potted plant. There were no windows, but she’d put a big picture of what looked like windows being opened to a beach scene behind her.

  Her computer sat on the desk, the screen dark. Gretchen loved to plan in her notebooks and journals, and Will had been doing some online research about the best ones so he could get her an elite planner for her birthday.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “I love how it turned out.” She smiled at him, and Will leaned down to kiss her. She kissed him back, and Will relaxed even more.

  “Are you excited about the grand re-opening tomorrow?” he asked.

  “Nervous,” she admitted.

  “I think the moment of ‘someday, somehow’ has arrived, Gretchen,” he said. “You did it. It’s almost all okay again.”

  She nodded, her anxiety evident. “And the small kitchen.” She went across the hall to the candy kitchen where the fire had started. Jon worked in there, and he looked up as Will and Gretchen entered the room.

  “Hey,” he said, going back to wiping the counter. “Almost cleaned up.”

  “Just giving Will a tour,” she said, throwing Jon a smile. Will watched the exchange, but he couldn’t tell anything different between her and Jon.

  “Have a good night,” he said. “I’ll be here at eight.”

  “Okay,” Gretchen said, and she looked at Will. “Take me to dinner?”

  Hope burned through his chest, and he wondered if all of his doubts had just been his own demons trying to chase him to the edge of a cliff, where he’d throw himself off.

  “Sure,” he said, his voice somewhat choked. “Anywhere you want.”

  22

  Gretchen didn’t want to go out. Her very bones ached, and she was so tired of thinking. Everyone around her had so many questions, and everyone looked to her for the answers.

  She led Will out to the back parking lot, but his truck wasn’t there. “Oh, you came in the front.”

  “I can walk around,” he said. He ran his hand up her arm and along her neck. “Gretchen, you—we don’t have to go out. Do you want to just go home?”

  Tears pricked her eyes, because Will did know her so well. She nodded, and Will did too. “I’ll follow you there,” he said. “I can go get something in town and bring it out.”

  “Okay,” she said, closing her eyes. The past six weeks had been a living nightmare, and sometimes Will had eased her stress, and sometimes he’d added to it. She felt stretched thin, and she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.

  She told herself it would all be over tomorrow, because Taffy was going to re-open in the morning. But she knew what her bank account looked like, and she knew what the business books looked like, and she’d be paying for this fire for a long, long time still.

  The nightmare wasn’t over yet.

  “How about that wood-fired corn pizza?” she suggested.

  A shadow crossed his face, but he said, “Okay. I’ll see you at your house in a bit.” He didn’t kiss her before he turned and went back into the shop through the back door.

  Gretchen didn’t have the mental energy to analyze his behavior. She had enough other things to worry about, and he was a grown man.

  She went home, calling her daddy along the way so she wouldn’t have to think about him once Will brought dinner. She fed Elvis and texted Max that his cat missed him. How are you? she asked her brother, because he’d been telling her about an upcoming talent show for his oldest daughter, who really wanted her mother to come see her tap dance.

  She sat and texted with Max for quite a while, not realizing how much time had passed until Max said he had to go so he could get his youngest to bed.

  “Bed?” Gretchen asked herself, looking up from her phone. She glanced at it again, realizing she and Will had split ways over an hour ago. Almost ninety minutes, in fact.

  She tapped to call him, but his phone only rang once before going to voicemail. It was probably dead, and Gretchen got to her feet, which ached as she did.

  Her stomach growled at her, and she cracked the front door, the whine of the hinges still loud enough to alert Elvis that a door had been opened.

  She quickly stepped outside, a hint of worry gnawing at her. Just then, bright LED headlights cut through the darkness, and she recognized the rumble of his truck’s engine as he turned the corner at the end of her street.

  He arrived in her driveway a few seconds later, and he got out, slamming doors left and right. Oh, boy.

  He came toward her with two pizza boxes in his hands and the power of darkness in his eyes.

  “I tried calling you,” she said. “Your phone must be dead.”

  “Yeah, because I waited at Pizza Five-Twelve for the last two hours.” He stomped up the stairs, and Gretchen suddenly didn’t want him there.

  He went into her house, leaving the door open, and she caught a streak of gray tabby cat as she turned.

  Her own anger sprang to life, and she followed Will into the house. “You let out Elvis.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but he didn’t sound sorry. He tossed the pizza on the counter and wouldn’t look at her.

  Gretchen usually didn’t mind her grumpy cowboy. He’d respected her wishes these past few weeks, and he’d asked her about Taffy all the time. He’d taken her away from the chaos on the weekends, and he hadn’t left her side in some of the worst moments of the past six weeks.

  “Just go home,” she said, joining him at the counter.

  He looked at her then. “What?”

  “I can’t handle your grumpy side tonight,” she said, trying not to be cruel. “Thank you for the pizza. But really. Just go. You’ve probably been up since four, and we should’ve just had something here.” She opened the top box to find the wood-fired corn pizza she liked. The dobs of ricotta all over it made her mouth water.

  “You want me to go?”

  “Yes,” she said, glaring at him.

  “Fine.” He ripped the box out from underneath the corn pizza. “I don’t know how to be who you want,” he said. “I really don’t.” He walked away, leaving Gretchen reeling for a moment.

  When she finally caught up to what he’d said, she dashed after him. Will had long legs, and he’d reached the bottom of her front steps by the time she gained the porch. “Will.”

  “What?” he yelled into the night. “Don’t come by the shop, Will. Don’t give me your opinion, Will. Go get me some dinner, Will. Be happy about wasting almost two hours in a stupid pizzeria when you could’ve been with me, Will.” He opened the back door and all but threw the pizza in the back seat.

  He glared at her where she’d frozen at the top of the stairs. “I don’t know what you want from me, Gretchen. I’ll admit I have a temper, but I swear to you, I’ve been trying to tame it.”

  “I know,” she said, but she hadn’t spoken nearly loud enough for him to hear.

  “I am who I am,” he said. “I’m not perfect. I know that, but I have been trying so hard. I don’t think I’ll ever be who you want.”

  Gretchen didn’t know what was happening, so she just stood there and looked at him.

  “I’m going to go,” he said. “Good luck with your re-opening tomorrow.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’re not going to come?”

  “I have to pick up some stuff in town,” he said, opening his door and getting behind the wheel. He paused there, and their eyes met through the windshield.

  He got back out and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to live up to your standards. Honestly, I am.” He paused right at the front corner of his truck, the headlights now flooding the entire front of the house. “I think if your shop hadn’t burned, I might’ve been able to somehow convince you to stay with me. But I can see now that I won’t be able to, because I’m simply not who you want.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said, her chest catching on to what he was saying.

  “I’m loud, and I have opinions, and yes, I get mad when I waste my whole Friday night waiting for a pizza instead of kissing the woman I love.” He stopped and shook his head. “This doesn’t matter. I have to go. Good luck tomorrow.”