on his front porch out of pity. Pity pastries didn’t taste the same as pastries he ordered and paid for.
But Charlotte didn’t pull a box of bagels from her back seat. Instead, she emerged with a bouquet of flowers, wrapped in the brown paper from Quinn Collins’s Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop. He knew the place well. How many times had he bought Gemma just because roses there?
Charlotte shut the car door with her hip and walked to the front of the Jetta, then held the bouquet out in his direction. He could see sprays of color poking out of the top of the brown wrapping.
“You brought me flowers?”
Nobody had ever given him flowers.
Her face fell. Again with that tone. He needed to work on that. Hildy would smack him upside the head if she heard him speak to a woman like that. He reached out and took the bouquet, unsure how to hold it. He sure wasn’t going to cradle it the way Gemma would’ve.
She looked past him and into the garage. “Is it bad?” she asked with a nod toward the truck.
He turned and looked at it as she walked past him and stood in front of the truck, surveying the damage she’d done. “Oh, wow. It is bad.”
“It’ll be fine,” he said. “I just need to order a new headlight.” Not entirely true. There was more work to be done to repair the truck, but why go into that now?
“It’s a really old truck,” she said. “That’s probably going to be hard to find, right? I mean, they probably don’t keep them in stock at the hardware store.” She glanced at him, her eyes wide.
“Um, no,” he said, softening his tone. “They don’t.” There, that was better. Not nearly as rude as he’d been before.
“You’ll send me the bill, right?” she asked, turning toward him.
“I’ve got your number,” he said, with no intention of sending her anything. No intention of ever seeing her again, really. She’d just given him flowers, for Pete’s sake.
But you did keep her number . . .
She stood awkwardly in front of him, like she had more to say but also like she didn’t know where to begin. He wasn’t one for small talk.
“Was there something else?” he asked.
She swallowed, a surprised look crossing her face. “Just that those probably need water. You know, so they don’t die.”
He lifted the bouquet and gave it a shake. “Got it.”
She nodded. “I’m living here now, at least for a little while, so I just wanted to be sure, you know, there were no hard feelings. It’s kind of awful to start your first day in a new town with a fender bender. I guess I just wanted to make sure you weren’t upset. I mean, obviously you should be upset, but maybe the flowers will help make you less upset?”
“I’m fine,” he said, feeling indifferent.
She nodded again. “Great.”
“Great.”
She eyed him for a long moment. “They told me you don’t like to talk to people, but they didn’t tell me you were a grouch.” She huffed, walking past him toward her car.
What she’d said should probably upset him, but for some reason he found himself amused. “A grouch?”
“Yeah, a grouch. You know, like the Grinch or Oscar or Scrooge. Someone comes over to your house with a peace offering, you should at least say thank you.” All five feet, eight or so inches of her straightened as she squared off in front of him.
“Uh, thank you?” he muttered.
She rolled her eyes and continued toward her car. “Send me the bill, Scrooge.”
“Scrooge was a miser, not a grouch,” he called out.
She spun around and glared at him. He expected her to roll her eyes again and keep walking, but instead she marched back to him, and for a second he was mildly afraid. She yanked the bouquet out of his hand, rifled around in it, then produced a small white envelope. “You can keep the flowers, but I’m taking this back.”
He frowned as she shoved the flowers back toward him. “What is it?”
She steeled her jaw. “You’ll never know.”
And with that, she trudged back to her car, got in, started the engine, and drove away.
Cole watched the car disappear around the corner, looked at the disheveled bouquet in his hands, and he couldn’t help it—he smiled.
6
What an idiot!
Charlotte sped down the unfamiliar street as fast as she could without going over the speed limit. So far, her trip to Harbor Pointe was going swimmingly. Julianna’s husband had made it