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“Not you,” I said, realizing I’d made the threat out loud. I handed him back the flowers. “I’m honored by your offer, Gage. And youdeservesomeone serious, someone perfect, someone whoyou’reperfect for.” Because Gage Buchananwasperfect. “That’s just not me.” I leaned up and kissed him on his cheek. “I hope we can be friends. I have to go.”
And with that, I jumped in my car and peeled out of the driveway of the Yellow Trellis Inn. When I glanced in my rearview mirror, the crew, including Easton, and now Gage, who had walked up the steps to join them with his massive bouquet, were all standing on the porch, watching as I drove away.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Haven
The door to his house was wide-open, an old-fashioned bike with a white woven basket featuring a daisy leaned against the porch. My heart stalled. Was there awomanhere? I got out of my car slowly, closing the door and hesitantly headed toward the house I knew from the Pelion directory was Travis’s.
I knocked on the open door, leaning my head in. “Hello?” I called, walking inside, my heart rate increasing now, thumping in my ears. It smelled like fresh paint. “Travis?”
He appeared from around the corner, a box in his hands, his eyes wide with surprise. He set the box down slowly, his gaze held to mine as he straightened. “Haven?”
“Hi.” I walked inside, noting the other boxes piled here and there. “You’re moving?”
He looked around as though searching for the answer. “Uh. Yeah. Not for a couple of weeks but I’m getting a head start on packing.”
“Where?”
“Where?” he parroted.
“Where are you moving?”
He gave his head a slight shake. “Just…down the street a ways. The landlord’s cousin is moving in so I got kicked out.” He was standing so still, watching me carefully. “What are you doing here?”
I ran my finger along the chair rail, walking closer. I spotted Clawdia stretched out near a window, basking in a pool of yellow sunshine. I looked back at Travis, raising my eyebrows in question.
“I, uh, took her off Betty’s hands,” he said in explanation. “She dropped her off this morning. Said I was doing her a favor.” He glanced at the cat in question. “Clawdia gets skittish around so many moving feet. A B and B isn’t the ideal place for her.” His gaze flickered away, and Clawdia meowed from her patch of light, as if corroborating his obvious lie. Little accomplice.
My lip trembled. It turned out this big policeman was acatlover.
But I’d already suspected as much.
I cleared my throat. “My brother came into some land.”
His eyes moved over my face. “Oh yeah?”
“He won it from a guy down at the firehouse last night. The firehouse where they’ve all but offered him a job.” I paused, giving Travis a sideways look. “The funny thing is, those guys asked Easton to go to a certain town meeting that I heard was…well,memorable.”
He kept staring. “I…see,” he finally said.
I nodded, sucking on my bottom lip. “It’s as if they knew what was going to happen at that meeting. As if they’d been told in advance.”
“I…see,” he repeated.
“And then, shocker of all shockers, my brother won some money and a plot of land later that night from one of those same firemen.”
“Lucky,” he all but choked.
“You’d think, right?” I tapped my finger on my chin. “Only…we’ve never exactly been the lucky types. So I got to wondering…”
“Uh-oh.”
My lip quirked, but despite his joke, he still looked mildly ill and as though everywhere except his mouth might have suddenly turned to stone.
“I rememberedyoumentioned owning a plot of land. And I got to wondering what I’d find if I looked up the deed to the one Easton now owns. When might it have been transferred to that fireman so he could ‘lose’ it in that poker game. And by whom.”
He watched me silently, finally moving as he shoved his hands in his pockets but not before I noticed they were trembling. “Don’t do that,” he said.
