“Good to know.” She forced herself to smile. “I appreciate your concern for him, but please don’t worry. I’ll be leaving soon, and he knows it. He won’t let himself get hurt.”
Suddenly exhausted, she flicked a glance at the door and wondered whether she should head back to the Spite House after lunch. Take a nap or read for a while, in blessed solitude. Regain her emotional equilibrium.
“Wait.” Charlotte’s hands flew up, palms out. “I shouldn’t have—”
The bakery’s back room phone jangled. Normally, someone out front would pick up the call—since Karl did not want to chat with customers over the phone, heaven forbid—but this time, the receiver kept ringing.
Brows drawn together in a pained expression, Charlotte answered the phone. “Grounds and Grains Bakery. Charlotte speaking. May I help you?” She paused, her eyebrows lifting. “So...you want a twelve-inch round cake reading, ‘You blow, Slatterns “R” Us,’ then an asterisk, followed by ‘Also not in a fun way’?” Another pause. “Okay. Hold on. Let me get my pen and an order form, and we’ll nail down all the details.”
Distracted from her weird sense of deflation, Molly squinted at the custom-order rack. Sure enough, the earlier cake had disappeared. Must’ve been picked up while she was eating with Lise. And from the sound of this call, it had already been delivered to its intended recipient.
She kind of wished she were staying in Harlot’s Bay long enough to watch the entire rival-adult-stores saga play out. Not to mention the Charlotte-and-Hector saga, and... yeah. A lot of other things too.
Her fondness for the community shouldn’t surprise her. Harlot’s Bay was the one place where she’d tried to put down roots as a teenager, the one place she’d missed after leaving it behind, and there was good reason for that.
Honestly? She could very easily love this town. Just like she could very easily love Karl, if she weren’t careful.
Without trust, though... love alone wouldn’t be enough to keep her. Not this time.
She waved at Charlotte before leaving the back room, then at Karl—who was still helping out front, his expression highly aggrieved—before saying goodbye to Lise. She left the remains of her lunch to her friend.
As she exited the bakery, she thought she heard Karl shout something. To her, to a customer, to the universe at large—hard to say which.
Didn’t matter, really. She was already gone.
And she made very, very sure not to look back.
11
Unlike every other goddamn thing he’d tried with Dearborn, food was working for Karl.
Escape room last Sunday? Utter failure. Still embarrassed about that disaster. Thursday, she’d fled the bakery during his latest pointless argument with Jerry, the bakery’s most annoying customer. She’d returned yesterday and spent most of her Friday with him, but seemed distant for some reason he didn’t understand and didn’t have time to question her about, given his current weekday schedule.
Yep. Definitely a matter of appropriate timing. Not cowardice on his part.
Coward or not, by the time she’d packed up to leave yesterday afternoon, he’d been in a near panic. Starving for uninterrupted time together, even apart from their trust-building session scheduled for today. Anxious to erase her new reserve. Willing to propose anything and everything that might convince her to give him—and Harlot’s Bay—a real shot.
So he’d invited her to the Nasty Wenches meeting tomorrow. September’s bizarro theme? Sexy Satans. Luckily, he knew for a fact she’d narrated Sadie Brazen’sBedded by Beelzebub, where the horned asshole hero had a prehensile tail and a super-long forked tongue, because of course he fucking did.
Invitation seemed like a no-brainer to him. Not to her, though. She’d claimed she didn’t want to impose. When he’d told hershe’d like the Wenches—they were a bunch of weirdos, but good people—she’d said there was no point getting attached, since she was leaving soon.
Kick to the goddamn gut.
She’d bang him—that was clear—but not stay long-term. Didn’t seem to trust him more than before either.
So yeah, things looked pretty bleak. But lunch last weekend was great, until everything went sideways in that stupid escape room. And all this week, even an oblivious bastard like him could see how she softened each time he fixed her something special. One of her sweet-as-hell lattes, or those bougie sandwiches.
Desperate—a man fighting for his life—he’d used actualmicrogreensyesterday. Total fucking travesty. But it’dworked. He’d plunked her plate down in front of her at that booth where she liked to eat with Lise—now reserved for them during lunch hours, though she didn’t know that shit—and watched her lips curve in a wide, sweet smile, her eyes brighten as they held his, and her body sway in his direction.
She’d told him she liked a good banh mi. He’d listened. That meant something to her.
Sexual chemistry between the two of them came easy. But her reaction to his food wasn’t about lust. Well, it kinda was, but that lust was mainly sandwich-directed. The emotion aimed his way? Only a hint of desire. Mostly pleased surprise. Warmth. Connection.
Everything he needed from her. Everything he wanted to nurture.
To encourage that reaction, that softness in her expression? He’d do whatever was necessary. If food did the trick, good enough.
This Saturday’s trust-building activity hadn’t been chosen atrandom. He was leaning hard on the lone area where he’d felt some give. Pushing at the spot with everything he had.
