Page 129 of Key West Homecoming

Will got quiet before. It was his way of dealing with difficult things. He’d done it before the Atlanta job and disappeared into his own thoughts for nearly two weeks. Then he finally told her about the offer. In the end, he turned it down. Kaitlyn had never known whether all that silence had been about taking the job or deciding not to.

“Have you asked him?” Elena said.

“Four times.”

“You’ve asked what he’s thinking about. That isn’t the same thing.”

Kaitlyn looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You keep giving him an opening and hoping he’ll walk through it,” Elena continued. “Ask the question you actually want answered.”

“And if the answer is bad?”

“Then at least you’ll know what you’re dealing with.”

Kaitlyn knew Elena was right.

“You and Will have been through too much together to start guessing at what the other one feels now. Trust me, you’ll be glad you told him how you feel.”

Elena went back to the office and left the door open behind her.

Kaitlyn finished wrapping the glasses and stacked the boxes by the front door. Then she stood in the middle of the room with her phone in her hand. Borrowed chairs and folded linens were still scattered around her.

For several minutes she did nothing.

At ten past eleven, she finally typed, Are you home tonight?

His answer came within a minute.

It’ll be late. Don’t wait up. Tomorrow will be better.

Kaitlyn read his words twice. There was nothing wrong with them. That didn’t stop her from worrying.

Tomorrow, she wrote.

Then she carried the first box toward her car. She hoped Tess and Leah would meet her outside Max’s, although she wasn’t in the mood to listen to their opinions.

Emma had planned to spend two hours helping Jake with the pergola. Six hours had passed by the time she left Hibiscus Lane.

The morning had gone easily. Emma held cedar slats while Jake checked the spacing and handed him screws when he needed them. Eventually, she earned the right to hold the level without supervision. At some point, he stopped teasing her about the bubble. He simply trusted her to tell him when the board was straight.

They made a late-morning run to the Cuban place on Simonton. Back at the cottage, they ate egg sandwiches on the porch step and drank strong coffee. Nothing important was said. They talked about the pergola and a neighbor’s cat. Jake teased Emma about whether she had enough practical experience to demand a promotion.

Jake threatened to make her foreman, and Emma threatened to unionize.

For most of the morning, neither of them talked about the kiss, although Emma couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Every time Jake stood close enough for his arm to brush hers, Emma noticed. She noticed when he looked at her a little longer than the conversation required too. The kiss hadn’t made things awkward between them, which was something she had worried about the night before. If anything, being with him felt easier now. That might have frightened her once, but it didn’t today.

At one-thirty, Emma finally insisted Jake didn’t need to walk her to the gate.

“I’ll call you later?”

“Absolutely.”

She drove into town with the taste of Cuban coffee still in her mouth. Her muscles had the pleasant ache of a morning spent doing something with her hands.

She couldn’t explain to anyone why she needed time with the people she’d come to think of as family, but Leah, Tess and Connie were as close as they come. There were few days when she didn’t find herself walking through the doors of Margarita Max’s and today was no exception.