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“I…I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Wha—?” He started in absolute confusion, stepping toward me, but I only jerked back farther.
He fell to a stop, gaping at me. “Bailey?” The concern and uncertainty in his face killed me.
I couldn’t do this. I might be the bold, snarky Bailey Prescott, who wasn’t afraid to faceoff with anyone and spit my brutal truth right in their face, but try to make me confront my own fears and insecurities, and nothing made me run faster.
So here I stood in front of the boy I’d fallen in love with, a boy I knew I could never really have, and instead of risking rejection and a broken heart, I shook my head and gasped, “I have to go.” I spun away and raced off.
“Bailey!” Alarm filled his voice. I could hear footsteps as he followed me, trying to catch up, but I only ran faster, dodging past my car and circling around my house. I’d grown up on this farm, explored it for twenty years; I knew I could escape him.
After rounding the house, I dodged into the machine shed and hurried through it so I could burst out the exit on the other side. When I crept back outside, Beckett was nowhere in sight, so I took off running again, backtracking to the front of the house where I’d left my car. But I didn’t hop in it and drive off. I needed more solitude and peace. I needed my place. So I hurried back to the horse barn, rushing past Lula Bell’s stall to grab hold of the ladder and climbing up into the hayloft.
Once I was there, I shuffled through the dark until I could find where the string for the single-hanging light was by feel. But as soon as I found it and gave it a pull, the overhead bulb isn’t the only thing that sprang to life. Along with it, thousands of other lights bloomed, lining the rafters like a host of fireflies.
“What the…?” I spun in a circle, gaping at all the Christmas lights strung around me, making my special spot glow with the most beautiful, peaceful decoration ever.
“D
o you like it?”
Sucking in a surprised breath, I spun toward the opening of the loft where Beck were lifting himself from the opening in the floor. He eyed me warily as he eased the rest of the way up and then sat directly by the loft door as if ready to leave again if I ordered him gone. Or maybe he wanted to prevent me from escaping if I wanted to try.
When I could do nothing but gape at him, he gave a self-derisive laugh and motioned around him. “Took me about three days to sneak up here and hang everything. I had a bad feeling Booth would sabotage my surprise for you if he knew what I was doing so I had to keep it on the down-low.” He gave another smile-type laugh at himself as he met my gaze.
If I’d been in any other frame of mind, I would’ve nodded or totally agreed. Sabotage totally sounded like Booth’s MO.
“Since you’re an electrical engineer major, I thought the light-part would win me extra brownie points.”
He seemed sad as he said this, as if he was certain he’d made no points at all. I just blinked at him. I have no idea why he even wanted extra brownie points with me, but he’d definitely gotten them. And more.
“How did you know?” I rasped.
His gaze shifted from a strand of lights to me. “What? That this was your spot?” With a shrug, he glanced around himself. “Your dad sent me up here the second day I was here to get a fresh bale of hay, and…I don’t know.” He shrugged again, his lips tilting with an affectionate smile. “It just felt like you, like somewhere a girl with four older brothers would go to get alone and find some peace. To dream. So I found myself coming up here in the evenings so I could find…you.”
The last word was spoken so quietly I could barely hear it. But oh, I definitely felt it.
Beck had done all this for me, because he knew me, because he wanted to make me happy, because he wanted to feel closer to me.
Because he cared.
I wasn’t sure how to deal with that. It was too much, too big, too amazing. I couldn’t trust it. No one cared this much about me. He had to be just trying to pay me back. That’s all. It wasn’t…he didn’t love me. Not like I loved him.
But, oh my God, his sweet, amazing gesture affected me. It rattled and devastated me.
Knees giving out, I sank to the floor of the loft and sat heavily on the wooden planks, hugging my knees up to my chest and burying my face into them so I could weep.
Chapter 32
BECKETT
Of all the things I’d hoped to accomplish when I’d jazzed up Bailey’s loft, a complete meltdown was totally not on the list.
In my wildest fantasies, I’d hoped to impress her enough to make her throw her arms around me and kiss the breath from my lungs before she tackled me onto a bed of hay and…well, that was the wildest dream I’d had. But I would’ve settled just as happily if her response had been to grin and smack me in the arm before proclaiming, “Not half bad, Bucket.”
Except she hadn’t done that either.
Sobs tore from her chest as if her happiness was being peeled away from her very soul with a paint scraper.
