That wasn’t right.
Heat thrummed through his veins, but he reined it in. No more games. Bri deserved better than that, and he wouldn’t touch her again until he knew he was doing it with the right motive—until his heart was as convinced as his body.
Besides, they were alone in his room. Talk about a bad idea. He needed to shut that door, quick—and probably open the tangible one across the room.
It took every ounce of willpower he could muster, but he pulled back, letting his hand drop to his side despite it itching to clamp back on her hip. He rolled over onto his back. “Thanks again for the cake.”
“You’re welcome.” A thousand question marks danced in her eyes, and he hated leaving her that way. She sat upright. “Gerard . . .”
“I know.” This was their second almost-kiss, and he’d yet to explain either. How could he explain sheer terror, like when he’d stared into the eyes of a black bear in the Colorado wilds or parachuted out of an airplane? Yet she terrified parts of him he didn’t know existed. “It’s that I don’t—it’s not you—”
“It’s her.”
Statement, not a question, and that hurt. Because Bri had it all wrong. She thought he still had feelings for Kelsey, and she couldn’t be more incorrect. Yet how could he argue when he couldn’t tell her the real reason?
“It’s okay, I get it. Old relationships die hard.” Her voice cracked as she scooted toward the edge of the bed and braced herself on the mattress to stand up.
He might not be able to explain himself yet, but he definitely couldn’t let her think that. “No, you don’t get it. Can you just trust me on this one?” He sat up just as Bri’s hand knocked into his laptop.
Before he could react, she straightened the tilted monitor she’d bumped, her eyes dropping to the screen. To the document full of her name, some in caps, some lowercase. Some spaced. Some ran together.
Oh no. Heat gripped his chest in a vise.
She met his gaze, the question marks turning into something undecipherable. The corner of her lips tightened. A frown? A smile?
He couldn’t tell, couldn’t stop his heart from racing a marathon. “Bri—”
“Well, you certainly spelled it right.”
He closed his eyes, embarrassment threatening to drown him in waves. “Bri.”
She set the copy of The Notebook on his nightstand and strode toward the door. She lifted her hand in a wave, her face a neutral mask he couldn’t interpret. “See you at the wedding.”
He flopped back onto the bed and covered his face with his arm as the door clicked shut behind her.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
He’d doodled her name. As much as one could doodle on a computer, anyway.
But why?
Bri tossed on her side, squishing her pillow under her head for the tenth time since her failed attempt to sleep an hour earlier. If she didn’t know better, she’d assume it meant something—sort of akin to a woman drawing hearts and squiggles around her boyfriend’s name. Not that Gerard was a hearts-and-squiggles kind of guy. But he wasn’t the kind of guy to type someone’s name without a reason either.
Apparently she’d gotten in his head. Was that what he’d meant by there was “something about this town”?
Something about her?
Bri abruptly sat up, straightening the twisted neck of her long sleep shirt. She couldn’t lay there any longer, playing their second almost-kiss in her mind over and over like a scratched record. Nor could she figure any reason for her typed name. She knew what she wanted it to mean—which only proved how exhausted she was. She wasn’t Gerard’s type, and him not kissing her—while embarrassing—was a blessing in disguise. She couldn’t afford to get any more emotionally tangled up than she already was right now.
Especially not with someone a week or less away from roaring out of town on his motorcycle and never looking back.
No more gifts and special treatment. The article would be what it would be—she didn’t need to waste any more time buttering Gerard up. She had to start focusing on what really mattered. Like saving the Puff and finding out the truth behind her parents’ story.
But even as she climbed the stairs to the attic, she knew that wasn’t fully accurate. She hadn’t been buttering Gerard up. She wasn’t bribing him into writing what she wanted—she cared. A little more than she wanted to admit.
That urge to bake him the cake had been divine, she was sure of it. She had never felt so prompted by the Lord to give something away—more so even than the times she’d discounted baked goods for single moms and snuck Mr. Mac extra macarons and gave coffee to the homeless guy passing through town on his rusty bicycle.
That cake had been for a purpose—evidenced by the look in his eyes when he’d lifted the cardboard lid.
But her role in that purpose had to come to an end.
Bri grabbed the letters from the trunk and settled into her typical spot. She curled her bare legs up beside her and shivered, wishing she’d thought to haul a blanket up there with her. Maybe the answers wouldn’t take long to find.
But as she flipped through the worn letters, nothing jumped out at her. No more clues, no more smudged letters. No more erased mistakes.
Had she imagined the whole thing?
She wanted to think that was true. She wanted to carefully tuck the packet of letters back into the depths of the trunk and cling to her memories. And leave them untarnished.
But Gerard’s voice, nudging her toward the truth about her view of Paris, the truth about her heart for the people of Story, the truth about her book club friend’s marriage, urged her forward.
What if there was more unwelcome truth here to discover?
She ran her finger over the flap of the letter open in her lap. And suddenly a new memory surfaced, of her mom doing the same. Standing at the Formica counter
