Page 110 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

Lunchtime came and went, and that nagging feeling didn’t ease. I tried to concentrate on work, but I couldn’t. Each time the front bell rang, distracting me, my head flew up, and I didn’t know why. I kept peeking through the back window to check on the painting progress of that barn in the back, but I couldn’t see well that far in the distance. Usually, I kept to myself in the back: decorating, mixing, blending, and checking new orders, but today there was something odd in the air. I could almost taste that something wasn’t right.

At two o’clock, I removed my apron, had a sip of water, took two boxes of fresh cupcakes and muffins, and headed for the barn. My knees shook underneath me as I steadied my breathing. It had been almost five years since I’d last set foot inside that barn, and the memories flooding my mind were reviving a grief I’d stashed deep in my heart. When I approached the barn, I waved to the men painting its roof. “I’ve brought some cupcakes, gentlemen.”

I didn’t recognize any of them, which somewhat confirmed that feeling of weirdness I’d had in my chest that morning. New people in town no one had mentioned were definitely a good enough reason to raise a brow.

I set one box on a round wooden pillar in hope that our new neighbor would appreciate my small gift of welcome. I wondered what he was doing to the inside of that barn, and about his intentions in our town.

Where’s the door?I remembered a sliding barn door on this side. I looked at its remembered spot, where a new stone chimney rose in its place, well above the roof. I paced around the corner to where the real front door, with an enclosed glass porch, had been added. I wouldn’t have thought glass would match this wooden structure, but in this case, it did.

Fresh roses bloomed all around the front yard and the smell of brand new grass lingered in the air. Whoever had done the landscaping here must have just finished. Four sprinklers were spraying water in a circular motion, one of them right up to the front door. I timed my steps and hurried by just as the water passed the front steps. I knocked on the glass, looking back as the water made its clockwise run. It was almost at the halfway point when I knocked the second time, harder.

No one answered. As the nozzle neared in my direction, I had two options: either run away or step inside. I touched the handle and decided it would be safer to be on the other side of the glass. Thankfully, the door wasn’t locked. I turned around to look back at the water streaming down the front glass door, satisfied with my swift escape. When I turned around again to knock on the actual wooden barn door, I bumped into a hard chest.

The smell of him hit me first, confusing me. It triggered a flood of emotions before I even lifted my gaze to meet his. Recognition dawned in slow motion, and I fainted.

Chapter 26

My head hurt. I was back in that dream, in the trenches. But instead of it being a war, the trenches were in a dark forest, and a bear was chasing me. I could see its teeth each time I turned, hear its loud growl behind me, and smell the stench of wet fur. And then it was all quiet. I stopped and warily turned around. Nick stood a couple of feet away, holding my hand.

“Nick?” I looked up but met Carter’s loving gaze instead.

Is this a dream?

“Hey there, Cupcake. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

I shut my eyes closed, desperate to collect my thoughts.

“Carter, I saw him. I saw Nick.”

This couldn’t have been a dream, could it?

“I know.”

“What?”

“I said I know.”

I hadn’t gone mad? Nick was actually alive? So why wasn’t Carter excited? Where was Nick? I sat up and tried to clear my head. My heart was begging to be ripped out of its cage in my chest so it could leap closer to wherever Nick was.

“It’s true then? It wasn’t just my mind?”

“You fainted, and he called me. At first I thought it was a prank call, but it wasn’t. It’s true. Nick is alive. You fainted when you saw him, and you’ve been falling in and out of consciousness.” I reached down, wrung some water out of a cloth, and pressed it to my head. Faint memories of Nick holding it over my forehead drifted back, the searing touch of his fingers on my skin generating new heat in the spots I thought he had touched me. I wanted to feel that euphoric again. I wanted to forget the past five years and be back in his arms.

“Where is he?” I tried to sit up, but still felt too dizzy.

“Take it easy, Jo. He’s by the garage. Mackenzie’s still at the bakery.”

My daughter’s name singlehandedly brought me back to reality.

“I told Marge you weren’t feeling well and that I took you home.”

Home.

That’s when I noticed that I was lying on a cushioned seat outside. I didn’t recognize this furniture, nor the fire pit nearby. “We’re still by the barn, Jo.”

“Barn?”

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