CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Will
It’s nighttime before I can get away to find Annie.
I still don’t fully know what happened this afternoon. Everything seemed to be going well, and then I called her sexy and everything fell apart. She said something about it being a nice line and working perfectly. But I’m not sure what about that would have hurt her so badly.
All I know is that the look she had before she shot up from the table gutted me. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. One glance at those blue eyes filled with emotion, and I wanted to beg her to stay so I could fix whatever happened. I haven’t been able to shake the image from my head all day. And now I’m finally off work, and I’ve been trying to hunt Annie down. I checked her house first, but her truck wasn’t there. And then I drove by Hank’s, and she wasn’t there either.
Even though her shop is closed, I decided to come by anyway, and sure enough, there she is. The town is dark, but her shop is lit up like a glass box. I see her in there standing in front of the wooden worktable, shoving stems of greenery into a vase like it personally offended her. Her long blonde hair is piled on her head in a messy jumbled heap, and she’s wearing a light pink oversize sweatshirt that’s draping off one of her shoulders. I’ve never seen her undone like that, and it’s making my pulse race. My fingers ache to sink into the back of her messy hair and wreck it even more. Seeing her bathed in light and surrounded by flowers from out here in the dark makes me feel like a man who slipped out of hell and is glimpsing heaven.
Annie takes a step back from her worktable and presses one sweatshirt covered fist to her mouth, appraising the bouquet she’s been working on, and then apparently deciding she hates it and ripping all the stems out again.
I try the door, expecting it to be locked, but it’s not. The bell chimes above my head as I step into the warm shop.
“We’re closed,” Annie says without even checking to make sure a serial killer isn’t about to murder her.
“That’s too bad because I really need to buy a bouquet for a woman,” I say, and Annie’s body stiffens. “It’s an emergency.”
Slowly she turns to look at me. Her face is a study in embarrassment, but I don’t know why. I’ve never wanted to crawl into someone’s head and read all of their thoughts like I do with Annie. My need to understand her, to know every desire, every hope and fear and longing, scares me.
“What kind of bouquet do you need?” she asks, tugging the sleeves of her sweatshirt—which I can now see has a slightly faded Charlotte’s Flowers logo on the front—over her fists and bunching them up at her chest.
I squint one eye. “An apology bouquet.”
Her face softens and her hands fall to her sides. “Will…you have nothing to apologize for.”
“I do, though—I said something that really hurt someone, and I don’t know why.” I take two steps closer. “But I want to fix it. I want to make her feel better. So if you could make her a bouquet that you would like to receive, I’d be so grateful.” She watches me closely as I edge even closer to her. “Or…if you’re too busy, maybe I could make her one myself?”
A warm smile curves her full lips and more than ever I want to press mine to hers. I want to lick the sweetness right from her skin. “You don’t need to do that, Will.”
I lift a brow. “Very presumptuous of you, ma’am. You don’t even know the lady.”
She laughs and shakes her head before shifting on her feet. “Fine. I think if the lady in question was hurt—it probably wasn’t your fault.”
I step closer and my senses fill with Annie. She smells like sunlight and sugar cookies. “It was. I called her sexy and it offended her. I think I crossed a line.”
Annie presses the heels of her hands to her eyes. “No. Oh gosh—I’m so embarrassed. Let’s just forget it, please?”
I’m close enough now that I’m able to tug her hands down. “I can’t do that. What happened, Annie? Are you upset that I think you’re sexy? Are you afraid it’s going to change things?”
She squeaks and her eyes clamp shut. “No! I’m upset that you keep feeding me that line over and over.”
I frown. “It’s not a line.”
“Yes, it is. We were in the middle of practicing, and you lured me right into your perfect trap of seduction with your question and then made up the story about the tree and then hooked me with the line about being sexy, and it was just too much. And then I felt silly because I was the one who asked for all of this, but then I got so caught up in it I forgot it was a demonstration again, and—”
I press my hand to her mouth. “None of that was a lie. None. I swear to you—I wasn’t even setting a trap of seduction or whatever you said. The story about the tree was true and something I’ve never told another soul. And the part where I think you’re wildly sexy is true too.” And then I notice tears welling in her eyes again, and now I’m completely lost. I shift my hand from her mouth to clasp the side of her jaw and rub my thumb under her eye—wiping away a tear. “Annie, why does that make you cry?”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head desperately like she’s hoping it will shake her emotions away. “Because…because no one has ever said that about me before.” Those blue eyes open again, and a burst of potent feelings hits me in the chest. “They say it about my sisters—but never me. I’m always praised for being so nice and kind and tender. I’m the girl next door with the sweet face. I’m never viewed as a woman, Will. Instead, I’m just the one men butter up so that I’ll introduce them to Emily and Madison. Even John said…” she trails off.
“What did John say?” I ask feeling every muscle in my body go rigid.
“When I overheard him on the phone telling his friend how boring I was, he also said I was only prettyish.” She smiles sadly.
“I’ll murder him.”
“Will!” Annie reprimands me with a surprised laugh.
“I’m serious, Annie. That guy doesn’t deserve to go on living after making you feel so shitty. Especially after he wore the ugliest baby-blue polo I’ve ever seen on a date.” She laughs, and I shift my hand around to the back of her neck—not willing to let her go yet. “And he’s just plain wrong. First, he was wrong about you being boring. You don’t even need dating lessons, Annie, you were so perfect on our date. Even when you think you’re doing something wrong, you’re so damn adorable I wanted to pull you into my lap and do things with you in the middle of that diner that would have put me in jail for public indecency. Second, he was so wrong about you being only prettyish. God, Annie, you’re drop-dead gorgeous. So beautiful it’s hard to look at you and continue persuading myself that kissing you would be a mistake because of our agreement. And third, your ass.”
She gasps. “What about it?”
“Your ass is a work of art. Two absolutely perfect slopes of soft curvy sensuality that absolutely kill me, Annie. Your ass kills me. And I need you to know that if we weren’t doing this just-friends thing—I would have already…” I let the sentence dangle as my eyes rake over her, implying everything I’ve dreamed of doing with Annie but not saying it out loud because I think I’ve already said too much as it is. And the thing that scares me the most is how desperate I am for her to know all of this and believe it. I’m so good at playing games. At strategically moving pieces around so I can be seductive without ever really having to be real. Without truly risking any feelings. But just now I was more honest and ineloquent than I’ve ever been in my life.
I’m not playing games with Annie—I’m spilling my heart out.
When our gazes lock again, her tears are gone. Instead, her cheeks are rosy and she’s pressing her smile into her knuckles.
I gently angle her face up to look at me. “Do you believe me?”
She nods silently. And then her eyes drop to my lips. “But you were wrong about something.”
“What’s that?”