Page 4 of Our Now and Forever

Snow stuttered as she answered. “I ... I’m not. I mean ... You ... In that chair ...” Abandoning the effort to explain, she resorted to waving a hand in his general direction.

Caleb examined the chair beneath him. Looking her way with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “I don’t see any comfortable brown leather, so blue with polka-dots will have to do.”

His words conjured memories of the first night they’d spent together, when they’d made love in a worn leather chair at his apartment. Heat pooled in Snow’s belly and slowly spread to her extremities. She didn’t need a mirror to know her thoughts were revealed in the redness of her skin. All the moisture seemed to leave her mouth and relocate to her palms.

Opening the cash drawer with a loud ding, Snow said, “You’ll need to be quiet while I count.” As if she could possibly count money now that her libido was fully awake for the first time in more than a year. She had to fight not to cross the short distance between them.

Memories of flexing muscles, talented hands, and sapphire eyes assaulted her.

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty ... Had Lorelei turned up the heat before she left?

Snow shook her head, pulled a number out of thin air, and wrote it on her cash sheet.

Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty ... Why did he have to wear that same cologne? The scent of pine and man and sex danced in the air, which made no sense at all. No one here was having sex. Nor would they be.

Snatching the black hat from her head, Snow slammed it onto the counter and wiped her brow on her sleeve.

“You okay over there?” Caleb asked. His voice even. Unaffected.

“I’m fine,” she snapped. Taking a deep breath, Snow rolled her shoulders and said, “It’s been a long day is all. I’m tired.”

“The sooner you get that money counted, the sooner we can get out of here.”

Right. Wait. Did he say we?

“I’m finished,” she said, closing the drawer and turning toward the back room.

Caleb lifted out of the chair. “Where are you going?”

“My purse is in the back,” Snow answered. He didn’t need to know there was also a back door.

Once inside the storeroom, Snow pulled the backpack she used as a purse from the bottom drawer of an ancient metal desk, then reached for a trench coat draped over the back of the chair. She was five feet from the rear exit when Caleb caught her.

“Going somewhere?”

Freezing in place, Snow managed not to curse aloud. She jammed an arm into the sleeve of her coat as she spun. “I told you. I had to get my purse.”

“And now you have it,” he said, nodding toward the bag in her hand. “Don’t you think you should lock the front door before you hightail it out the back? Or were you expecting me to lock up before chasing you down? Again.”

Dropping her bag back on the desk, Snow said, “Let’s get this over with, then.” She only hoped she sounded confident and annoyed rather than scared out of her mind. “Ask your questions.”

One perfect brow cocked up. “I want to know why you left,” he said as he crossed his arms. “And I want to know when you’re coming home.”

Caleb almost faltered as the color drained from Snow’s face. The need to pull her close and tell her everything would be okay warred with his determination that she answer for her actions. Vows meant something, even when they’d been spoken in front of a bad Elvis impersonator. At least they did to him. His wife didn’t seem to possess the same conviction.

With her trench coat hanging off one arm, Snow pulled a chair away from the small table to his right and sat down. “I couldn’t stay,” she said, dropping her head into her hands.

“Why?” he asked. “Why couldn’t you stay?”

Shaking her head, she lifted her face, revealing the moisture in her hazel eyes. “We made a mistake, Caleb. The marriage was a mistake.”

“I disagree.” Caleb leaned his hands on the table. “You never gave it a chance.”

“When something is that obvious, there’s no reason to drag it out.”

“So you left,” he said, anger intensified by the hurt that had been prickling his skin like a cactus for eighteen months. “Even if you were right, and we made a mistake, you don’t walk away without a word, Snow. Leaving didn’t solve anything.”

She threw her hands in the air. “You think I don’t know that? I panicked, okay? I got in the car and I drove and ... I don’t know.” Snow sighed. “I couldn’t make myself turn around.”

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