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Cassidy is close enough to touch. I could so easily cup her cheek and draw her in for a slow kiss that would make the both of us dizzy. My gaze drops to her glossy lips. What flavor would I taste?
Her lips part as her eyelashes flutter. She stares at my chest, as though it’s the most interesting thing in the world. Her fingers reach out, grazing my shirt. It doesn’t seem to matter that I’m fucking filthy. She smooths those fingers, pushing them against my chest. Fuck me, her touch is fire.
Cassidy lifts her gaze.
This is it.
This is the moment I’m going to kiss her. The moment that everything will change. Because after one kiss, I know she won’t be able to deny what’s burning between us.
Cassidy screams and jumps back, damn near tripping over her own feet. She narrowly avoids dropping into the mop bucket. I instantly rush forward her to help, but she refuses my hand and scrambles backward. “Spider!” she sputters in a high-pitched cry.
“Where?”
She points at me, her face turning white as a ghost. “Shoulder!”
I see a glimpse of something black and hairy on my right shoulder and brush it away quickly with a flick of my wrist. The spider—admittedly bigger than I expected it to be—scurries away toward the back corner and disappears down the dark hallway toward the restrooms. I chase after it, intent on ending the bastard who decided to interrupt a very pivotal moment. Before I can, Cassidy wraps both hands around my bicep and tugs me to a stop.
“Don’t!” she whisper-gasps. Her wide eyes are beautiful despite the fear in them. From her expression, I might’ve just faced off with a grizzly bear. “It’s not worth—”
“We’re back,” a woman’s sing-songy voice announces. Avery Flanders holds up a couple of paper bags, followed by Micah. The two met in college and have been friends ever since. At least as far as Avery is concerned. She, from my understanding, is the photographer Cassidy has hired to help her market her new business.
Guess we’re all having lunch together.
“I’m starving,” Cassidy says, rushing toward her friend. Robbing me of the blanket of heat that had gathered between us. “Let’s eat!”
5
CASSIDY
Just as I feared, avoiding Declan with the grand opening looming closer and closer has been impossible. Which is why I begged Avery to spend the afternoon at the bar with me, photographing some of my signature drinks for the website and social media posts—I’m hoping I’m not the only book nerd in Daisy Hills who’ll appreciate the cleverness I’ve devised.
Avery has been the buffer I’ve desperately needed to keep a safe distance between Declan and me. It feels as though I’m a measly paperclip and Declan’s the world’s largest—and strongest—magnet.
“You’re good at this,” Avery says with a nod at the drinks I’ve created.
“I’ve bartended a lot.” I pretend not to notice her curious gaze burning into me as I adjust the cocktail straw with a cherry punched perfectly through it.
Though Avery, along with Haley, have been nothing but wonderful to me since I moved to Daisy Hills—the closest I’ve ever had to best friends—I haven’t told them much about my former life. Honestly, I’d be happy enough to never talk about it again. It’s not so much that it was traumatic—aside from the restraining order bit—but that I closed that chapter and don’t care to revisit it.
Daisy Hills is the chance to reinvent myself.
To be someone bolder.
Avery nods thoughtfully. “I guess that makes sense since you’re opening a bar.” She waits for me to back up before adjusting her camera lens and lowering her eye to the viewfinder. She snaps a dozen pictures, then a dozen more. Different angles to capture not only the drinks, but the rustic stack of books we’ve piled behind them. I can’t wait to see the finished products.
I foolishly believe I’ve dodged her prodding until she lowers her camera and looks right at me. “Why did you move to Daisy Hills?”
Her question is innocent enough. One I might be inclined to answer somewhat truthfully if Declan wasn’t within earshot. Damn the man for standing on a ladder with both hands held over his head as he adjusts a sprinkler line. My eyes can’t decide where they most want to steal peeks—his exposed abs or his flexed biceps.
He glances over, catches me staring, and winks.
The jerk actually winks at me.
I turn my back to him, mostly to hide the instant blush that has spread across my chest. “I was tired of making other people’s dreams come true,” I say to Avery in answer to her earlier question. It’s not the entire truth, but it’s not a lie either. This trusting people is going to take some time. Weeks. Months. Maybe years.
“And Ester offered you the opportunity to make your own dreams come true?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
