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8
“Who’s that who keeps texting you?” Karyn Harlow looked at Gretchen with surprise and curiosity in her eyes. She reached for another pod of edamame, but that didn’t mean she didn’t hear the buzzing of yet another text.
And then another one.
Gretchen swiped her phone off the table beside her and put it in her pocket. There, it could only rumble against her bones, making her weary from the inside out.
I’m not in the mood.
Will’s words from two days ago still cut through Gretchen. She’d apologized via text for calling him when he was busy, and he hadn’t responded—until now. Now, it seemed his fingers were on fire and his mind stuffed full of guilt, because he’d texted her at least fifteen times in the past sixty seconds.
“No one,” Gretchen said, shooting Karyn a look she hoped told the older woman to drop it. She’d come to Karyn’s for lunch today, because she’d taken a much-needed break from the candy shop. Jon was a wizard with guests, and they didn’t need more truffles for their cases. They’d be out of brownies and pecan spiders by morning, but Gretchen didn’t much care.
Not today, anyway.
“Sure,” Karyn said as if she believed her. “I haveno onetext me five hundred times a minute too.”
Gretchen let out all of her breath, the macaroni salad she’d been about to eat falling right off the fork as her arm sagged. It was too good to waste, but she couldn’t bring herself to care right now.
“It’s William Cooper,” she said. “He asked me out last week, and by some strange occurrence I don’t understand, I said yes.” Gretchen looked across the table to Karyn. She’d stopped eating completely, and for once Gretchen was glad they were just at her house. Her two-year-old was down for a nap, and her older boy was at school.
“Then, there was this weird muddy hug, and a really hot cheek-kiss, but also cops, and the most delicious contraband ice cream.” Gretchen tossed her fork onto the table. “We were supposed to go out on Tuesday, and he was grumpy about the rain and all the work going on at the farm. I called him, and he said he wasn’t in the mood.” Her chest heaved, and it hurt, and she just wanted someone to make it all go away.
Karyn blinked a couple of times, as if Gretchen had strung together a bunch of words in another language. “Let’s circle back to the cops and the contraband ice cream,” she said slowly. “But start with what happened after the call on Tuesday.”
“I sent him an apology. He hasn’t responded until now.”
Karyn started waggling her perfectly manicured fingers. “Give me the phone.”
“Karyn,” Gretchen said, suddenly so protective of her device. “You can’t text him.”
“I’m not going to text him,” she said fiercely. “I’m going to screen his texts to see if you want to read them or not.”
Gretchen took out her phone and passed it to Karyn. “You like this man?” the older woman asked.
She didn’t look up at Gretchen, which made it easier for her to say, “Yes,” accompanied by a long, swoony sigh.
Karyn’s eyes flitted back and forth as she read, only getting wider and wider as she did. She met Gretchen’s gaze silently, and she handed the phone back. “You’ll want to read those.”
“All of them?”
“Quickly,” Karyn said, her smile growing on her face.
Gretchen took a breath and held it as she looked down. Will had been sending a lot of texts, and Gretchen warmed with each one she read.
I’m so sorrystuck out to her.
I was just in such a foul moodhit her squarely between the eyes.I get grumpy sometimes.
I want to see you. No, I need to see you.
Please tell me I didn’t fatally mess up.
And those were just some of the messages. She looked up and met Karyn’s eyes. “Do you think he’s sending all of these?”
She shrugged one shoulder as her toddler started to fuss through the speaker on the baby monitor. “I don’t know, but he did win a contest once for fastest texter in Texas.”
Gretchen sat very still, trying to absorb those words. “You’re kidding.”
