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The instant he was out of sight, Anna went straight for the heavy-duty rubber bands she kept in a drawer at the checkout counter and attempted some emergency hair management.
Hoyt Bradley hadn’t changed a bit since high school. She could almost feel her blood pressure going up.
She’d barely finished corralling her uncooperative hair into a messy ponytail when Hoyt reemerged from the storeroom. He retracted the tape measure in his hand and stuffed a torn scrap of paper in the breast pocket of his shirt. “I’m done. I can get the door fixed today, but I’m going to have to special-order the window, and that’ll take a while. I’ll board up the gap for you when I swing back by.”
More Hoyt was the last thing she needed. “Don’t worry about it. I can rig up something to keep the rain out.”
“Rain’s not all you want to keep out. You don’t want somebody breaking in.”
“In Pine Valley? I doubt that’ll be a problem. Besides, there’s nothing in here to steal except books.”
Hoyt paused. For the first time since she’d opened the door, he looked serious. “About that. How bad is it?”
Something about his tone put Anna on alert. “How bad is what?”
“Are you carrying a lot of debt or is it just a cash flow problem?” Confused, she frowned at him, and he made an impatient noise. “The bookstore, Anna. How deep in the hole are you?”
Typical Hoyt, standing there, asking nosy questions as if he had every right to know. Well, she wasn’t sharing. For one thing, her finances were none of his business.
And for another thing, she’d already been embarrassed enough for one morning, thank you very much.
“That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?”
Hoyt sighed and looked at his watch. “I think you never could give a guy a straight answer. I don’t have time to get into all this right now anyway. I’ve got a job site to get to. We’ll have to hash it out later. How about after work? That good for you? You could come over to my house for supper.”
The man was unbelievable. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not? I’m serious, Anna. Me and you need to talk. You don’t have anything more exciting lined up for tonight. Do you?”
It was something about the offhand way he tacked on the question and the humorous twinkle in his eye as he asked it. Like he already knew she’d be sitting at home alone on a Saturday night reading a book, just like always.
That happened to be true. But the fact that Hoyt Bradley knew it irritated her, and the words came out before she could stop herself.
“It’s you and I.”
“What?”
“You and I need to talk. Not me and you. I must have told you that at least a million times back in high school.”
Hoyt stared for a second. Then he laughed and shook his head. “Still dishing out the Annatude. I guess some things never change.”
Annatude. She’d forgotten about the word he’d made up back in high school. It had been their little inside joke, and she’d actually thought it was cute. For a while.
Until she’d realized that the joke was on her.
She lifted her chin. “Your grammar certainly hasn’t changed.”
Hoyt glanced at his watch and made an impatient noise. “Look, I really don’t have time for all this right now, Anna, so let’s cut to the chase. I know you don’t like me much, okay? I get that, but this isn’t about me. This is about Jess.”
He was right. She didn’t like him much. She also didn’t like being steamrolled, so she’d been prepared to dig in her heels and stand her ground.
Right up until that last sentence.
She hesitated, torn between her irritation with Hoyt and her concern for his daughter. The concern won out. “What about Jess?”
“We’ll talk about it tonight over supper.” The corner of Hoyt’s mouth twitched. “Me and you. Say, around six thirty? Don’t expect a lot of bells and whistles, though. I’m not much of a cook, but I’ll come up with something. You could bring some dessert if you want. You used to make a pretty stellar brownie if I remember right.”
That was the wrong memory for him to bring up. Remembering the long afternoons she’d spent baking those sad little I-have-a-crush-on-you brownies still made her cringe.
That clinched it. No way was she was going to Hoyt Bradley’s house for dinner. She opened her mouth to tell him so.
He must have read her expression, because he spoke before she could. “Anna, Jess is all I have. She finally talked last night after all these years, and I want—” His voice roughened, and he waited a second before continuing. “I’m going to do everything I can to make sure she keeps on talking. I know this isn’t your problem, and I’m really sorry to bug you. But somehow you and this store of yours have gotten tangled up in my situation, so I’d appreciate it a lot if you’d take the time to talk with me about it. At my house. Tonight.”
Jess is all I have. Anna chewed on her lower lip. She knew what it was like to have only one person in the whole world left to love. She also knew how it felt when that person slipped away from you into a place you couldn’t access, no matter how desperately you wanted to.
She was going to kick herself for this later, but—
“Okay.”
“Please, Anna, I—” Hoyt stopped short. For once in her life, she’d thrown him off-balance. “Okay?”
“Yes. I’ll come.”
Hoyt blinked a couple of times. “I really appreciate that. I guess I’ll see you tonight.”
“Right.” They considered each other for an awkward second or two, and then Hoyt nodded and headed out of the store toward his truck.
Anna relocked the door behind him, her heart skipping nervously. Glancing up, she caught Hoyt studying her from the cab of the truck.
Their eyes connected, and she realized something. For probably the first and only time in their lives, she and Hoyt Bradley were thinking the exact same thing.
What on earth did I just get myself into?
* * *
Hoyt Bradley didn’t spook easy, and he had his dad to thank for that. When you grew up in a house with a mean drunk, you learned early to cope with stuff that made most people turn tail and run.
So it made no sense for his palms to be sweaty when he reached for the doorknob at six thirty. On the dot.
Trust Anna Delaney to be СКАЧАТЬ