He’d told her that weekend of the wedding that he’d read and liked her books. She’d been utterly mortified, not only because he was far from her target audience, but because she’d been writing thinly veiled versions of him all this time. Or the him she’d imagined he’d become. If he’d recognized himself, he hadn’t called her out on it, and Paisley had let that detail go.
She remembered it now as she lifted the battered volume. The edges were stained, the pages wavy, as if it had gotten wet at some point. The cover was little frayed and white around the corners, with a multitude of bends and folds, like maybe it had been shoved into a rucksack in a hurry. Maybe it had been. The spine was creased in the way of a favorite that had been visited again and again. Running a finger over her own name, she wondered why this one? There were a few others in the box, but none that had been this well read. It was one of her few romantic suspense novels, part of a series about a private security firm run by former military types. What was it about this story that had made him come back to it over and over? The redemption arc? The friends-to-lovers plot? Flipping pages, she let the book fall open. But before she could see what scene he’d reread, she heard a key in the lock.
Feeling guilty, she hurriedly put the book back and shoved the drawer back under the sofa, throwing herself back into the nest of blankets.
Ty came in laden with grocery bags. His gaze automatically swept the cabin, pausing on the fruit bowl she’d placed on the tiny butcher block island and the basket of greenery on the coffeetable beside her laptop. The mouth that had already been frowning seemed to dip further.
“What’s with the green stuff?”
“I picked it on my walk this afternoon. I thought it smelled nice.”
On a grunt, he navigated around Duke to put the groceries down on the kitchen counter. When he began unloading food instead of kissing her hello or otherwise acknowledging her presence, Paisley knit her fingers together. There was a tension around his eyes and mouth and a stiffness in the set of his shoulders. Was he troubled about work? Whatever had happened must’ve been out of the ordinary, or he wouldn’t have been called in with such haste. Or was it something else? She hated not knowing how to act, what to say.
He solved the issue by asking first. “Get any work done?”
“Some. I’m not used to this kind of quiet, with no traffic. Plenty of room to think.”
He grunted again, still not looking at her. Something was definitely off. This was Now Ty, not her familiar Ty. Maybe this was the norm for him. She had no reason to believe that the fun, playful side she’d been coaxing out of him was more than a temporary thing. Something akin to vacation personality. How you behaved when you weren’t in your real life. She was painfully aware she wasn’t part of his real life. Flirting him out of this mood felt like the wrong move, but she didn’t know the right one.
Duke pawed at the door. She rose to let him out. The shadows outside were growing long. The sun would be totally down soon. “Don’t go far.” Shutting the door behind him, she decided to take the plunge into the River Awkward. “How was work? Can I even ask about that?”
His shoulders jerked. “It’s not classified. A couple of idiots decided it was a good idea to fill a chest freezer with Tannerite and shoot it.”
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing it’s bad?”
“Tannerite is what’s known as a binary explosive target. It’s used for long-range firearms practice. Basically, it’s got two parts that, when mixed and hit with a high-velocity round, go boom.”
She’d grown up in the small-town South, where there’d been plenty of good ol’ boys who liked to hunt and play with guns. She could well imagine the kind of trouble this scenario might have caused. “Did anyone get hurt?”
Ty scrubbed a hand over his face. “By the grace of God, no. A copse of trees stopped the shrapnel from tearing them apart. They were damned lucky. There was a guy in Alabama last year who managed to blow his own leg off playing around with the stuff.”
Paisley covered her mouth in horror. Was that why he seemed off? Did the explosives bring up bad memories? Make him think of Garrett? She didn’t actually know the details about how Garrett had died. Now wasn’t the time to ask.
“Were they arrested?”
“They scared the shit out of their neighbors for miles—shook the ground when it went off—but didn’t actually break any laws. The sheriff hauled them in for a talking to, and they’ll be getting a visit from the ATF tomorrow.”
She wasn’t sure what to do. Comfort or retreat? Did he even need comfort? He’d barely even looked at her since he came in the door. It was so far from the warm kiss and “I’ll see you when I get home” he’d left her with this morning, she felt cold.
Did he regret asking her to stay? She’d worried about it herself after he’d gone. It was completely understandable he might second guess the impulse. And it had been an impulse—one born of the pleasure and the fun and the undeniable pull they still felt between them.
She craved a true second chance with him, but pushing too far, too fast would likely do more harm than good. Maybe she should give him an out. But what if he took it? What if this was her only shot? Disgusted with her lack of backbone, she decided to lead with her heart. If he rejected the overture, at least she’d know.
Crossing over, she wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her cheek
