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Five
Blaine arrivedat Oak Tree Furniture an hour earlier than usual, remnants of a bad night’s sleep scraping like gritty sand behind his eyes. He’d learned to compensate for Ally, his all-too-easygoing shop assistant with a tendency to delay the store’s opening after a night out. Not only would he be the one to pay the price for her tardiness, but she’d made a new friend last night. The worse friend she could have picked in the whole of America. But unfortunately for him, Ally had a way with customers he couldn’t easily replace.
The OPEN sign still clinked against the glass front door behind him as he strolled across the spacious showroom switching on lights, his head pounding and muscles stiff.
Within seconds of Emilia entering the tavern last night, his world had shifted to only seeing and thinking of her. Damn that woman and whatever unnatural hold she had over him. An involuntary electric current had run over his skin, her body-hugging dress drawing his attention to her soft, rounded curves. The light fabric glowed against her deep-golden skin tone. And even under Maynard’s dingy lights, she’d been a radiant vision too beautiful to miss.
Miss? I don’t miss her. At least… shit… I shouldn’t!
And what about her glove-covered hands? The ones she’d hidden the second he’d mentioned them. Her abraded knuckles weren’t the only thing she was hiding, and he knew from first-hand experience, whatever she felt the need to hide was bound to be something very wrong.
He rounded a corner and entered his light-filled workshop, where he picked up a few pieces of untreated pine from along the sidewall and slapped them onto his workbench. The loud thwack helped break the silence and gave him a momentary place to put his anger.
He’d focus on work. His small contribution to keeping this town alive, so much more important than his hang-ups over being just one face amidst a sea of hot-blooded men at Maynard’s admiring Emilia Bonacci.
Oh, fer crying out loud.The sear of unwanted jealousy spread hot tendrils through every one of his veins. He laid his hands flat to the bench top and squeezed his eyes shut, sucking in a few tight breaths. There’d been a time when she would have spotted him in a crowd. A time when no one else mattered. Her face would have lit up. She would have run into his arms and…
Shut up. Those days are over, knucklehead. Move on. She has.
Right. And regardless of his issues, he’d worked too damn hard to rebuild his life. Other people relied on him now. He’d promised Frank he’d fix Emilia’s kitchen—a promise he so desperately wanted to renege on, if only being true to his word didn’t mean so much to him.
He also had out-of-town orders flying at him left, right, and center. And if things went to plan, he’d be able to hire more staff, which meant maybe more young people would stick it out in this town over trying to make it in a bigger city, just like he had at one point.
And then there was someone else who relied on him, far more important than the rest. The doorbell rang, and he dropped his ruminating long enough to venture out to see who had entered.
He leaned against his workroom door and waited while Ally traipsed by. “You’re an hour late.”
Even though he loved Ally like his own little sister. Even though he loved running a business. Sometimes this woman made him question whether he actually did want to work with other people.
“Good grief, it’s always quiet this time of day.” She fluttered her long lashes, her unconvincing show of innocence, and shrugged. “Anyhoo, what’s your problem?”
He strode after her to the backroom while she hung her coat on a hook. “You’re not the one who makes the rules around here. You know there’s stuff to do even if there are no customers.”
Darn, the walls echoed his voice back to him. He sounded like a nagging father.
“Geez, Louise.” She strolled past, her shoulder brushing his, her twisting-teasing, sing-song tone setting his blood to boil. “There’s no need to take your bad mood out on me. Besides, your deepening lack of charm means you need me here more than ever, dontcha know?”
“Lack of charm?” His earlier headache intensified, and he stomped after her again. “There’s not a person in this town I don’t get along with.”
He pressed his jaw shut, realizing the lie the moment it slipped from his mouth.
There was one person.
“Really?” She rose a brow, and he couldn’t even argue back. For once in her life, Ally Egan was right. “You were all sorts of disgruntled yesterday, even before your whole toddler tantrum at Maynard’s, whatever the hell that was about. If you keep this attitude up, you’ll scare away the customers.”
Just as he’d been worried about sounding like her dad, here was Ally, sounding like his mom. He wanted to laugh; instead, he settled on standing in front of her while she slipped behind the counter. “And I’m supposed to believe you’re genuinely concerned about how my mood affects business?”
“No, not really.” She tilted her face down to a pile of receipts in her hand. “But maybe I could help you if you’d just let me know what’s got you so worked up.”
Besides having to watch one man after another ogle Emilia’s tiny hemline, while resisting the urge to punch each and every one of them out… Or worse, the urge to whisk the woman away altogether, so he could figure out how to entangle himself in her life once more?
Stupid. Moronic. Foolish. Thoughts like that will only unravel my life all over again.
“I’m not worked up.” The lie tasted bitter on his tongue, but he half-blamed Ally.
If she’d just minded her own business and left him alone last night, then he wouldn’t have had to watch Emilia’s smile turn to dust the moment she’d spotted him. And all that after he’d watched her offer a beaming grin to every other person who’d approached her.
But not him. No. Her face had paled, and she’d dug her heels into the ground, begging Ally to stay at the bar so she wouldn’t have to talk with him.
