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“Fine.” He ripped the box out from underneath the corn pizza. “I don’t know how to be who you want,” he said. “I really don’t.” He walked away, leaving Gretchen reeling for a moment.
When she finally caught up to what he’d said, she dashed after him. Will had long legs, and he’d reached the bottom of her front steps by the time she gained the porch. “Will.”
“What?” he yelled into the night. “Don’t come by the shop, Will. Don’t give me your opinion, Will. Go get me some dinner, Will. Be happy about wasting almost two hours in a stupid pizzeria when you could’ve been with me, Will.” He opened the back door and all but threw the pizza in the back seat.
He glared at her where she’d frozen at the top of the stairs. “I don’t know what you want from me, Gretchen. I’ll admit I have a temper, but I swear to you, I’ve been trying to tame it.”
“I know,” she said, but she hadn’t spoken nearly loud enough for him to hear.
“I am who I am,” he said. “I’m not perfect. I know that, but I have been tryingsohard. I don’t think I’ll ever be who you want.”
Gretchen didn’t know what was happening, so she just stood there and looked at him.
“I’m going to go,” he said. “Good luck with your re-opening tomorrow.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You’re not going to come?”
“I have to pick up some stuff in town,” he said, opening his door and getting behind the wheel. He paused there, and their eyes met through the windshield.
He got back out and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to live up to your standards. Honestly, I am.” He paused right at the front corner of his truck, the headlights now flooding the entire front of the house. “I think if your shop hadn’t burned, I might’ve been able to somehow convince you to stay with me. But I can see now that I won’t be able to, because I’m simply not who you want.”
“Don’t say that,” she said, her chest catching on to what he was saying.
“I’m loud, and I have opinions, and yes, I get mad when I waste my whole Friday night waiting for a pizza instead of kissing the woman I love.” He stopped and shook his head. “This doesn’t matter. I have to go. Good luck tomorrow.”
With that, Gretchen stared as Will got behind the wheel of his truck, took a second to buckle his seatbelt, and then backed right on out of her driveway.
Right on out of her life.
* * *
The next morning,Gretchen’s face felt as crusty and as swollen has it had the morning after the fire at Sweet Water Taffy. She hadn’t been able to find the courage to text or call Will last night, and foolishly, she searched the crowd who’d gathered in the front parking lot for him instead.
He wasn’t there, at least not that she could see. He wore such a blindingly white cowboy hat, she didn’t think she could miss him. Truck after truck pulled in, and then people started parking down the road.
Gretchen clutched her notecards, her stomach trying to claw its way into her brain.
“Gretchen,” Jon said, and she blinked away from the sea of faces. He looked like he’d been trying to get her attention for more than a moment, and she gave him a quick smile.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m ready.”
“I wasn’t going to ask that.” He nodded to someone to her left, and she looked that way, an insane amount of hope shooting to the back of her throat. Of course Will wouldn’t stay away from this, one of the most important events of her life.
She found a tall Cooper man standing over that way, but it wasn’t Will. By the look on Travis Cooper’s face, his brother wasn’t coming.
Gretchen’s emotions shook and shattered, and then Jon stepped in front of the mic and said, “Welcome everyone. We won’t waste your time this morning. I give you the tireless and fearless owner of Sweet Water Taffy, Gretchen Bellows!” He looked at her with a perfectly charming smile on his face, the one he used for all the customers.
She could see the urgency in his eyes too, telling her todwell on Will later. Re-open the shop now.
So she glued a smile on her lips and stepped over to him. “Thank you, Jon,” she said, taking a moment to arrange her notecards on the podium in front of her.
Her next thought was,Why is there a podium here? It’s a candy shop.
Rattled, she looked up from her notes, utterly lost.
Then she met a pair of eyes she’d know anywhere. They followed her into her dreams, and she knew exactly what they looked like when he smiled, when he was fixing to kiss her, and when he wanted to rage about waiting too long for pizza.
Will had come.
She wanted to run to him, but the crowd shifted, and she lost sight of those pretty ocean-colored eyes she wanted to dive into and swim around in for the rest of her life.
The woman I love.
She wanted to question him further about what he’d said last night, but her bravery had failed her once again. She wasn’t perfect either, and she hated that she made him feel like he had to be in order to be with her.
“Gretchen,” Jon hissed out of the corner of his smile.
She looked down at her notecards and took a great, big breath. “Wow,” she said as she looked up. “Thank you so much for coming out to support our grand re-opening. I sure hope we have enough caramels inside…”
