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I tried to muster the motivation to go to my bedroom, but the sofa was too damn comfy. And didn’t involve climbing a flight of stairs.I’ll just give it a few minutes.I closed my eyes for a moment and was awakened by a knock on the front door. Stephanie must have forgotten her key or was too lazy to fish it out of her purse. I blinked blearily at the clock on the wall. I’d been out for twenty minutes.
“Hang on,” I called, wrinkling my nose at the nasty taste in my mouth.
But it wasn’t Stephanie. In fact, it wasn’t anyone. Hanging on my front door was a grocery bag containing a box of saltine crackers and a two-liter bottle of ginger ale. I peered down the street and caught sight of truck taillights just before the vehicle turned the corner.
Well, hell. Confused feelings, I guess you’re here to stay.
***
WHEN I WOKEthe next morning, I felt a little hungover, but that was most likely from dehydration and was easily fixable. I was also pissed—not at Mr. Abernathy as one might assume, though. I’d known what I was getting myself into when I boarded his boat, and for that, I had no one to blame but myself. I was definitely annoyed at my sister, who’d loudly staggered in sometime in the middle of the night. But that was nothing compared to how angry I was with Bennett.
How dare he be a total ass to me and then turn around and do something sweet like bring me crackers and ginger ale? At first, I’d tried to convince myself someone else had done it. But even with my brain as foggy as it was, I knew it could have only been one person. Bennett Ramsey was a contradiction that made my head hurt.
The last time I’d had a cold, Reg had treated me like I had the plague. The man had sprayed his hands with Lysol and gone to stay in a hotel because I’d been in his apartment the night before. Granted, he had an important trial coming up, but still, that wasn’t how you treated someone you loved. I should have known right then that he didn’t truly love me. At the time, I hadn’t thought much about it because it wasn’t that different from what my mother’s husbands would have done.
Bennett had showed me he cared about me more than the man I’d dated for nearly two years had. Or maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he was simply a decent human being, whereas Reg wasn’t. The thought that I would have married that man if he’d asked made me cringe.
Yet the thought of being with Bennett filled my stomach with a warm feeling that spread to my chest. He’d taken care of me when it had been clear I didn’t want him to. What would it be like if I told him I wanted it?
Gah.I didn’t know what to think. Maybe his actions were some kind of guerrilla-warfare tactic to soften me up to his way of thinking, but I didn’t think so. Bennett was too straightforward for that. Besides, he had to know it wouldn’t work.
A knock on the door saved me from my thoughts. I sighed. Stephanie hadn’t yet emerged from her room, so it was up to me to answer. I should have banged on her door and made her deal with whoever it was. It would serve her right for being so loud after it had taken me hours to fall asleep.
I pulled on a robe and trudged downstairs. Female chattering was on the other side of the door. When I opened it, Lyra smiled brightly and held up a to-go coffee cup. “Good morning! I brought coffee!”
Madison, the woman who’d helped me at the rental office and who I now recognized as one of the Ramsey-Croft siblings, held up a white bag. “And muffins.”
I could have wept. “God bless you.” I opened the door so they could come in from the cold and bring the heavenly coffee with them.
Lyra gestured to my robe as I led them into the kitchen. “I hope we didn’t wake you. I would have called, but…”
“I lost my phone,” I filled in. “Who told you?”
“Hudson, then Wes, and finally Bennett confirmed.” Madison plopped down on a stool at the counter.
“Oh jeez,” I said. The Ramsey-Croft family must have still been as close as they ever were. A tiny spark of jealousy awakened within me. I’d always envied their family dynamics.
“The men in this town gossip worse than the women.” Lyra unwound the pink scarf from her neck. “I swear they have a phone tree set up.”
I wondered if that phone tree extended to the older gentlemen on the local business commission. If so, then it wouldn’t take Bennett long to figure out what I was up to, if he hadn’t already.
Who was I kidding? He wasn’t stupid—he’d known why I was on Mr. Abernathy’s boat. I wondered if Bennett would think I was dedicated to my job or simply foolish. Not that I cared what he thought.
“Did they also mention that I had puke all over myself and no one bothered to tell me?”
Lyra wrinkled her nose. “It might have come up.”
As I’d predicted, embarrassment flooded me now that I wasn’t worried about spewing on another innocent bush.Oh well.I’d understood the risks and made my choice. “I don’t know if that makes your brothers gentlemen or assholes for not telling me.”
“They can be both.” Madison laughed. “Trust me.”
“Oh, I’m aware,” I said under my breath.
Bennett had certainly shown that last night, but I suspected the latter part of the evening hadn’t made it through the gossip phone tree.If I asked him, would he even take responsibility for the saltines and ginger ale? What would it mean if he did—or if he didn’t?He should have dropped off an industrial-sized bottle of Advil because he made my head hurt.
“Bennett also mentioned that you might need some breakfast this morning,” Lyra said.
I blinked. “He did?” That was actually rather thoughtful of him.Ugh.My head pounded, and I mentally cursed his kindness. It was going to be the death of me.
