The girls’ eyes flicked excitedly up at their mother.
“Thank you.” Their mother put a hand on each of their pretty little heads and said, “You can each choose one sample.”
As the girls begged for more, Carly bit her tongue and helped two other customers. She’d learned her lesson early on. When she’d first started working for her aunt, she’d made the mistake of telling children they could take two, only to get the stink eye from their parents.
She spotted the flavor chart on the ground beside the table as she was giving the girls their samples, but before she could pick it up, another wave of customers arrived.
Forty minutes later, she was finishing up with the last customer—at least for the moment—and said, “We’re open seven days a week. I hope to see you again soon.” She quickly put the flavor chart where it belonged, then pulled out her phone and navigated to the text from Randi. It was a picture of Zev and the guys in their wet suits with the caption Dive #2! Carly’s attention was riveted to Zev’s athletic body trapped beneath the wet suit, leaving no room for imagination, and his mesmerizing eyes glittering at the camera. She could practically feel his heart thundering with anticipation. She remembered the thrill that had shot through her when she’d gotten her first look at him underwater.
A hand shot between her phone and her face, and she startled. “Sorry, I—”
Cutter stood beside her with a cocky smile and said, “What happened? Did you fall down the rabbit hole on a dirty-diver site?”
She hadn’t seen him since she’d dropped off the truffles as a thank-you gift for watching the animals. She looked around, relieved to see there were no customers in earshot. “Of course not. I don’t look at those sites. Is that even a thing? Dirty divers?”
“I don’t know. There are dirty cowboy sites, so I assume so.”
“How do you know that? Are you on them?” She thought better of it and said, “Don’t answer that.”
He laughed. “Well, something had your attention. I said your name three times.”
“Sorry. It’s Zev. He’s diving today and I’m anxious to hear from him.”
“I bet. How are you holding up now that he’s gone?”
She sighed. “How do you think?”
“I can’t imagine,” he said empathetically.
“Trust me, you don’t want to try. It’s like having the door to a new world open and you see all of its bright, shiny pieces, and then someone pushes the door so it’s almost closed, leaving just enough space for you to get a peek of the other side. Then they hang a sign that says ‘Coming Soon,’ and they push a giant block of lead against the door so you can’t open it, making all that special goodness that lit you up inside just out of reach. And you know you’ll get to see it again, but you don’t know when.”
Cutter’s brows slanted. “You mean Miss Organization doesn’t have dates and times for her next tryst?”
“Nope, and it’s not a tryst. But I’m okay with it. I’m here and I’m focusing on the festival.” She saw another group of people coming down the street. Is it just me, or is this day taking forever? She straightened the table to distract herself and said, “I’m cool. I don’t need solid plans.”
“Uh-huh,” he said with a heavy dose of disbelief.
“You’re not helping,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Maybe this will help. I wanted to mention it the other day, but you were in a hurry. Zev went to a lot of trouble to get that trip set up for you. I don’t know how he pulled it off so fast, but it was obviously important to him that you didn’t miss out on going diving. If Beau hadn’t already told me about all the deep-sea diving, cliff diving, hang gliding, freediving, and other crazy shit you and Zev did growing up, I would’ve told Zev he was crazy to plan a diving trip for you.”
“Wait. What was that about Beau?” She pocketed her phone and crossed her arms, staring him down.
He cleared his throat.
“Cutter? Ohmygod. You stinker!” She swatted him. “You were in on Char’s matchmaking scheme, weren’t you? What if Zev had been a jerk?”
“Do you really think I’d let the guy near you if I had concerns? Beau assured me that Zev wasn’t going to be a dick.”
Beau. He’d been as lost as Zev had been after Tory was killed, and look