“Ooh, defensive,” Lia said, sitting down on the chair closest to the sofa.
“Aargh!” Daff pointedly put her phone away and glared at Lia, but her younger sister just smiled back serenely.
“I’m just teasing, Sissy. You should keep texting him. You look happy when you’re communicating with him. You had this ridiculous grin on your face.”
Daff was about to respond when the sound of feminine giggling floated down from the loft. Mason’s muted voice muttered something they couldn’t hear, but Daisy’s drunk, slurry voice carried down to them clear as a bell.
“Just let me pet it a little! Please, Mason.”
Daff and Lia exchanged horrified looks. Mason spoke again, his voice low and urgent and unintelligible to them.
“Just a touch,” Daisy purred. “It wants to play. See?” They heard Mason’s low groan and Daff face-palmed—she would rather slice off her ears than hear this. Lia had her eyes closed and her lips were moving. Daff leaned a little closer. Was she praying?
“This can’t be happening!” That’s what Lia was saying. Just mumbling it over and over again.
“Let’s just leave,” Daff urged. “I can’t sit here and . . .”
They heard Mason’s heavy tread on the staircase and froze. He paused on the last step, looking a bit flushed and unable to meet their eyes. He hastened to stand behind one of the conveniently waist-high easy chairs.
“She gets a little . . . uh . . . affectionate after a few drinks,” he muttered awkwardly. “I’ll just send that Uber request and uh . . . yeah.”
“You’ve turned my sister into a total horn muffin,” Daff suddenly said, unable to resist.
“Daff!” Lia gasped, but Daff kept her eyes on Mason, who flushed even more. It was fun making the big, bad special-ops guy blush.
“She was a good girl before she met you, mister!” Daff continued, and Mason suddenly grinned.
“And now she’s a sexy woman. Hashtag no regrets.” He used air quotes as he said the last three words. It was kind of cute how he thought those two things would work together, and Daff choked back a laugh at the pithy response.
“I’m glad she’s marrying you,” Daff said. She had never completely forgiven Mason for his part in Spencer’s stupid wingman plan, and it had loomed between them since then. But she couldn’t deny that he made Daisy happy, and that had softened Daff’s attitude toward him. But she now recognized that she genuinely liked the guy. She hoped that her sincerity was apparent in her voice. Judging by the way he smiled, it was.
“Thanks. That means a lot.” Daff returned his smile. Happy that she and Mason could, once and for all, set aside the past and start anew.
A positive note on which to end an already awesome day.
CHAPTER TEN
Daff watched Spencer approach her shop the following afternoon and wondered if he was bringing lunch. It seemed pointless, since it was Saturday and they would both be closing shop in half an hour. They could go to MJ’s or something instead. Like they had just a week ago. She shook her head, unable to believe how much things had changed, not just with Spencer but in her life over the last seven days.
“Hi, there,” she greeted with a small smile when he finally stepped into the shop. He wasn’t carrying any bags, so he definitely wasn’t bringing lunch. He looked a little green around the gills, and she laughed. “A bit hungover today, are we?”
“Hmm.” He sat down on his favorite chair and folded his arms on the counter, resting his head on them for a brief moment.
“I have some aspirin if you think that will help,” she offered, hoping she sounded sympathetic. She definitely didn’t feel sympathetic—she really just wanted to laugh. The man looked pathetic.
“Had some already,” he grunted, lifting his head with effort to look at her.
“How did you manage to get through the day like this?”
“Claude took care of everything,” he said succinctly. “I hid in my office all morning.”
“For the love of his thighs, give that man a raise. He sounds like a saint.”
“Oh, it’s in the cards. Raise and promotion.”
“Doesn’t he already hold the highest position you can give at your store?”
“I’ve got some stuff in the pipeline. Will tell you when I can think straight.”
“You done for the day?” Keeping her curiosity at bay. What stuff?
“Fuck yeah. I was just dead weight anyway.”
“Lunch?”
“Hmm. Later. Will you go somewhere with me first?”
“Where?”
“Just a place I want to show you. I want your opinion. Please?”
“Yes, of course. I’m closing in twenty-five minutes.” He snorted and looked around the empty shop pointedly.
“Close early. What’re they gonna do? Fire you?”
“I’ve never closed early,” she huffed. “Not once since I’ve been the manager here, and I’m not about to ruin my perfect record now.”
“Fine. Wake me up when you’re ready to go.”
“God, you’re such a baby. I drank last night, too, you know? You don’t see me whining about it.”
“Ten-minute nap. It’s all I need . . .” His voice trailed off and the last word was followed by a light snore. She gaped at him, unable to believe that he’d fallen asleep just like that. She’d pay money to have that talent.
She shook her head and went back to her seat next to the till, digging out her romance novel—which she’d made very little progress on since Monday—and tried to concentrate on her reading. It was a lost cause. All she did was contemplate the top of his head and marvel at how shiny and silky that mane looked. Her eyes trailed down to the side of his face, the only part visible to her. The way his narrow, neatly trimmed sideburns met the line of stubble that darkened the lower half of his face. All uniformly short except for the ever-so-slightly darker patch beneath the center of his bottom lip, where his razor hadn’t done as meticulous a job. Her eyes lingered on his mouth. He had the most beautifully shaped lips she’d ever seen on a man. Gorgeous, sulky curve on the bottom lip and the deep, shadowed groove of his pronounced philtrum with its accompanying thin Cupid’s bow upper lip. Her eyes moved up from his mouth over the sharp, straight blade of his nose, that dimpled, lean left cheek—the only one visible to her—to his closed eye. His thick lashes were so long they cast shadows over the blunt curve of his cheekbone.
For a man who looked half-savage most of the time, he had surprisingly refined features. His heavy brows and deep-set eyes were what gave him that intense, untamed look, and when his hair was longer it definitely added to the image.
His eye cracked open, and he pinned her with a penetrating look. His gorgeous green eye looked somewhat bloodshot.
“I can feel you staring at me,” he accused.
“Just wondering if you shaved this morning. This stubble is out of control.” His eye slid shut again.
“Hmm.” For a moment she thought that was all she would get, but he continued, “My five o’clock shadow tends to make an appearance at about nine thirty every morning. I should probably just embrace the beard.”
“No, don’t,” she said so quickly she nearly sprained her tongue, and his eyelid lifted with seemingly great difficulty.
“Why not?”
“You’ll look completely primitive with a beard, Spencer,” she began derogatively, before stopping herself and adding honestly, “and you have a great jawline. Why hide it?”
“You think so?”
“Definitely.”
“Stop interrupting my snooze.”
“You only have fifteen minutes left.”
“I’ll make it a power nap.”
“So where are we going?” she asked twenty minutes later. They were in his truck. He looked surprisingly refreshed after the short nap he’d taken at the boutique. Daff was still confounded by his ability to fall asleep seemingly on command. Who did that?
“I’ll tell you when we get there,” he said, and she huffed impatiently. Three minutes later they turned in to the woods just outside Riversend, and shortly after that, Spencer slid the truck to a stop outside a dilapidated old house. It was in the middle of a fairly large clearing in the woods, but the clearing was overgrown with weeds and long grass. The picket fence was rotted and falling apart, resembling crooked, broken, and yellowed teeth. The front yard was scattered with random debris: tractor tires, a rusty old mattress frame, a stack of rusted hubcaps piled in a heap. She could see glints of broken glass strewn all over. There was an old, rotten, and moldy sofa in the middle of the path leading up to the rickety porch.
Spencer stood at the crooked iron gate and simply stared at the house for a long moment before removing his sunglasses and meeting her questioning eyes.
“It’s in worse shape than I imagined,” he said, his voice wobbly and his eyes haunted.
“This is where you grew up, isn’t it?” she asked softly, and he swallowed a couple of times before nodding.
“I haven’t been back here in years. Not since I left for college.” Not for sixteen years, then. He stepped through the gate and stopped. His reluctance to proceed was palpable.