Haylee stood and untied her apron on a nod, then held her hand out for my car keys. I sighed. I had officially pushed my luck.
Eight
I lowered my head to the seat of my car and rolled it back and forth a couple of times. I was exhausted, and it was only two o’clock. Somehow, I had to find the strength to get into my house. It had been a long day already. Maybe I could just go to bed and hope things looked better in the morning. I glanced over at the seat where a bag from the pharmacy was sitting. Chances weren’t great for that.
There was a knock on my window, and I jumped, letting out a little yelp until I recognized the face in the window. Bishop. I wanted to let out a deep sigh, but he would see me do it. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt his feelings. It was nothing against him, anyway. The fact that I was overwhelmed wasn’t his problem. It was mine.
I waved and opened the door, thinking hard about how I was going to swing my left leg out the door of my Subaru. “Hey, Bishop,” I said without moving.
“Hi, Amber. Sorry if I scared you. I was concerned when I realized you’d been sitting in your car for ten minutes. It’s going to get warm in there.”
“I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes?” I asked, glancing at the clock on the dashboard.
“I think you fell asleep,” he said, his gaze sweeping across me. It drew heat and fire to my gut and made me swallow hard when I recognized the desire in his eyes. After what I had just gone through, I had a way to make sure that disappeared and never returned.
“I may have. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I was at the bakery bright and early and then the clinic. How are you?” I asked, just to stop the diarrhea of my mouth. “Why were you watching me sleep?”
He laughed and pointed at his yard. “I was finishing up the deck demo. I’m having it replaced, and my handyman was here helping me get the old one gone. He just hauled all the old wood away, so now I’m looking for wayward nails. He’ll start building the new one in a few days.” He held up his hand before I could say anything. “Don’t worry, though. There won’t be any pounding. I bought a modular deck, so all he does is snap it together after he levels the ground.”
I tipped my head in confusion. “They make prefab decks now?”
“Yes! I didn’t know it either. I was doing a little research online and found them. I can’t wait to show you. You’ll love it.” He held the door all the way open and stepped back. “I should let you get out.”
I nodded, but my head just kept bobbing because I wasn’t sure how to accomplish that simple task.
He knelt next to me and turned my chin until I made eye contact. “Can I help you get out?”
“I wish I could tell you how,” I said on a sigh. “The clinic brought me out to the car in a wheelchair and now,” I paused to take a breath when he interrupted.
“Can you swing your legs out or not?”
“Only if I lift the left one out. It’s in bad shape,” I said, biting my lip.
He bent over, gently lifting the left leg out and lowering it to the ground, giving me the freedom to swing my right leg out and sit on the edge of the seat. I grabbed my purse, but before I could get my crutches, he scooped me out of the car and strode toward my apartment.
“You’re going to hurt yourself, Bishop,” I scolded, hanging on tightly to his t-shirt.
“You weigh nothing, my little tart,” he teased, his voice full of laughter.
His little tart? Were we back to that?
“Shows what you know,” I said, shaking my head. He waited while I unlocked the door to my apartment before he strode in and lowered me to the couch. “Thanks for the ride, but now I’m in the apartment, and I don’t have my crutches.” It was my turn to laugh when he held up his finger then jogged back out the door. When he returned, he had my crutches and the pharmacy bag. He set the bag down on the table by me and the crutches on the floor. “Let me get a pillow for that leg.”
I pointed down the hallway. “On the bed,” I said, ready to say more when he disappeared to get it.
“Holy hell!” His words were distant, but I snickered at the tone. When he reappeared, he was holding the pillow and shaking his head. “It looks like an office store exploded in there. What the hell?”
“I was going to explain,” I said, still laughing. Bishop handed me the pillow and sat opposite me in the chair by the doors. “You didn’t give me time.”
“I wasn’t expecting,” he motioned his hands around, “that.”
“Stop being dramatic. There aren’t that many boxes.”
“I counted like ten or twelve,” he said, a brow raised. “I missed something over the last eighteen hours. What’s going on?”
I sighed and let my shoulders drop back after I fixed the pillow. “I am officially out of the bakery except for interviews and paperwork.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “What do you mean out of the bakery?”
I held up my hand to clarify. “Sorry, not out of the bakery. I’m no longer working at the front counter. I’ll be doing all the management and marketing work from here on out. All of the customer service work will be employees only. Those boxes hold the paperwork and filing that we haven’t had time to deal with for over a year. My job is to spend
