The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,31
this store. My mother loves it almost as much as she loves me,” she quipped.
He faced her again. “I doubt that. Your mother thinks you hung the moon. Have you been spending a lot of time here since you’ve been home?”
“Quite a bit,” she admitted. “I help out most afternoons, once I’ve spent some time with my kids and have finished gardening.”
He held a sack in one hand but leaned casually on the counter with the opposite elbow. “I didn’t realize you were a gardener.”
“My mother planted it. I just tend it. It gives me something to do while I’m here besides helping out at the store, and I like feeling the earth between my fingers, watching things grow and eating what I produce.”
“You make gardening sound fun,” he said wryly. “I wouldn’t have believed anyone could do that—other than the eating part, of course.”
She laughed. “You don’t like getting your hands dirty?”
“I don’t mind that. I’ve just never had the burning desire to plant anything, I guess. What types of things are you growing?”
She was tempted to cut straight to the part where she asked him if he needed help finding a book, to save him the effort of making small talk. But if he was going to be polite, so was she. “Watermelon. Sweet potatoes. Zucchini. Tomatoes.”
“I have to admit there’s nothing better than a homegrown tomato. If I was tempted to grow anything, it would be that.”
“I make my own spaghetti sauce every fall—bottle it for the winter, leave some for my mom and take the rest back with me. So we raise a lot of them. I’m growing some basil and other herbs, too, that I use.”
Now that he’d spent a reasonable amount of time chitchatting with her—a nod to the fact that they’d gone to school together—she assumed he’d tell her it was good to see her again and ask where he could find the cookbook he’d come to purchase. Or maybe he was looking for a book on how to better manage a restaurant or survive a divorce. She was already wondering if they’d have what he wanted when he said, “I sent you a friend request on Facebook a while back, but I’m not on there very much, and now I’m guessing that you’re not, either.”
She was on every night, hoping for some word from her husband—or from someone who could tell her what’d happened to Nick. Each time she logged on, the little symbol that signified she had a friend request waiting drew her eye again and again. But she didn’t own up to having seen it. “Not since I’ve been here,” she lied.
“Well, you mentioned how much you like our carrot cake, so I brought you a slice.” He lifted the sack he’d been holding and put it on the counter. “I hope you enjoy it.”
Shocked, she glanced at the logo of the restaurant before meeting his gaze. “Thank you. That’s...really nice.”
“No problem,” he said and, with a parting wink, started to leave.
He didn’t need a book? He’d come just to deliver this cake—to her?
Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone else in the store at the moment. That was the only reason she allowed herself to call out to him. “Quinn?”
He had his hand on the door when he turned.
“I’m really sorry about your mother.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.”
“And...”
He waited patiently as she drew a bolstering breath.
“And I’m also sorry for how I behaved when we were in high school.”
The words tumbled out so fast she wouldn’t have been surprised if he needed her to repeat them. Fortunately, he seemed to have heard and understood. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said magnanimously.
“I did.”
“When?”
She was tempted to say, “Never mind,” in case he had really forgotten. But she was the one who’d brought it up. “You know...when I did what I did in the tree house that day.”
“What you did? I’m pretty sure we both participated.”
“But I was so forward even though you tried to tell me you weren’t interested.”
The glimmer in his eyes suggested he was tempted to laugh. Once she caught that, she suspected he’d been teasing her since she mentioned it. “I don’t remember those being the words I used.”
“Whatever you said, you were right. I was out of line. I apologize.”
His lips curved into a sexy grin. “Is that why you won’t accept my friend request?”
Damn. He’d guessed she’d seen it, and he was right, so she figured there was no use continuing to lie. “Partially.”