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“Not yet. I want to tell her. To ask for a second chance. But I don’t know if she’ll return my calls.”
“You hurt her bad. I was pretty young when she and Dad split, but I remember what she was like. This was worse.”
What kind of an asshole found hope in that statement? “I want to make it up to her. Need to make it up. Any suggestions?”
THE QUIET PURR OF A slowly driven vehicle droned through Penta’s closed bedroom window. The engine cut out and she wondered, not really caring, which neighbour was getting a late-night visitor.
She flopped into a new position and closed her eyes, determined to sleep. In the seven and a half nights since Cash had pushed her away, she’d discovered a new sympathy for insomniacs. And after her talk with Terrance the day before, she had even more to keep her awake.
Was it possible Cash loved her? At least enough to be worried for her safety and to protect her the only way he knew how—by keeping his distance?
She couldn’t live with the uncertainty. She had to know what he felt and, if revealing her own emotions was the only way, she’d risk the humiliation.
Tomorrow morning—a glance at the clock revealed it was after midnight—no, this morning, she would be waiting at the door of his shop when it opened. He couldn’t refuse to talk to her if she was standing in front of him, could he?
As she punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, she heard the muted click of the front door opening and closing. Sitting upright, she listened intently. Had she imagined it?
No. Voices drifted up the stairs and through her open bedroom door. Was it Felix, coming home from another date with Hadiyyah? She had yet to meet the girl. Was he sneaking her into the house?
Padding barefooted across the carpet, she peered down the hall. No more voices, but shuffling and rustling sounds. Then a grunt of effort and a soft thud.
If a grunt could sound like someone, this one sounded like Cash. She put it down to wishful thinking. She’d “seen” him multiple times during the last lonely week, only to be disillusioned.
Cautiously, she stepped out of her room and shuffled to the top of the stairs.
Was that fresh-baked cookies she smelled? She sniffed deeply. Yes. Chocolate chip. What on earth...?
“Put it there.”
Her heart leaped into her throat, skin prickling. Cash. She hadn’t been imagining things. There was no mistaking that gravelly tone.
A solid thunk, and then more shuffling and rustling.
She tiptoed down the stairs, through the short hall leading from the front door—closed and locked, she noted—to the kitchen.
And froze at the sight that greeted her.
CASH DIDN’T KNOW HOW Penta made her cookies look so smoothly rounded. His were oddly shaped and lumpy, even though he’d followed the recipe in the handmade book she’d given him with precision. He’d sampled one—just to make sure it wouldn’t poison her—and it had tasted pretty close to hers. Whatever. They would have to do. He’d arranged them on the tray as neatly as he could, but they’d shifted during the drive. He pushed one back into place with a fingertip.
Cyril adjusted the huge bouquet of flowers Cash had also brought, spinning it so the card was clearly visible. “How’s this?” he whispered.
Cash nodded. The cookies and flowers had been Cyril’s idea. But he had another ace up his sleeve, one he hoped would be a powerful symbol of his repentance.
“What’s going on?”
He spun around and drank in his first sight of Penta in more than a week.
Her pajamas were thin and silky but not the teapot ones he loved to tease her about. These were a pale grey that brought out the silvery strands in her tousled dark brown curls. He could tell with a glance she was braless beneath the buttoned top. His pulse, already thready with nerves, accelerated.
Cyril slid toward the door leading downstairs. “Just listen to him, Mom, okay?” He vanished.
Cash’s skin felt like it had shrunk two sizes. He rolled his shoulders to alleviate the sensation. “How are you?”
Her gaze skittered from the cookies to the flowers and back to him. “Confused.” She took a couple steps closer.
But not close enough. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms, to feel her pressed against him, preferably skin to skin, but he had some grovelling to do first. “You look tired.”
She raised an eyebrow.
