Page 37 of Things Left Unsaid

The simple apology—his second in twenty minutes—has me reeling.

“I know words don’t help, not when it’s words that are the problem.” He reaches for the hand still clinging onto his forearm. “I can’t fix our past, but I can make things better.”

“This is insane.” I jerk free of his hold. “You believed them this morning!”

“That was before I thought you were going to kill yourself in the lake,” he says simply, freezing me in place.

“I’m not suicidal.”

“You were depressed when you were younger. It’s half the reason I always made sure I was in the stables on Tuesdays and Fridays,” he murmurs, voice low enough that Harry couldn’t overhear our conversation with an ear horn.

I grow tense at the reminder. “That was then.”

“That was the last time I saw you. How was I to know? The contract might have tipped you over the edge.”

“I’m a lot stronger than you think.”

“Oh, Zee, I know that.” His gaze is soft as it settles on me. “Doesn’t mean that I can’t support you. Isn’t that what partners are supposed to do?”

“We’re not partners.”

His mouth twitches into a smile. “Will be soon.”

“This is too little, too late, dammit.”

“Never too late. Unless you’re getting soil tossed on your casket. We gotta start somewhere.”

He doesn’t let me reply. Just steers me deeper into the bakery, his hand settling on the small of my back again.

It’s a possessive hold.

Impossible to deny that this time.

Though I don’t understand his game, I don’t shrug away. If I do, Harry’s inquisitive eyes will track the movement.

Instead, I sample the only sugar-free sugar cookie I’ve ever eaten that doesn’t make me dry heave. The sugar-free butter tart isn’t for me though. I take half a bite then enjoy a regular one which is sodamngood it’s worth dealing with the aftermath.

It’s then, while Harry explains sugar alcohols to a seemingly fascinated Colton, that it begins to register there’s something more going on here. Something that the interlude with Hilary Browne disrupted.

When we’re done with Harry’s, he guides me to The Coffee Shop before stopping in first at the local drugstore. I stick around because, frankly, I’m curious.

First Harry, then Jocelyn who’s been running The Coffee Shop for over three decades—neither of them is hesitant in his presence.

They’re polite and cheerful. Kind and chatty.

It’s been a long while since I’ve seen the town respond to Clyde’s presence, but I remember it’s as if a plague had drifted into Pigeon Creek.

Every store owner sees me with him. His hand on my back or shoulder. His body turned toward me.

Harry and Jocelyn are the worst gossips in town.

He’s doing this for a reason, and I’m not that much of a fool that I don’t figure out his game by the time we’re ordering a coffee and he heads to the bathroom, for the first time leaving me alone.

That’s when the shit hits the fan.

Lydia Armstrong drops off our order, snarling the standard greeting, “You’re not welcome here,arsonist.”

After the day I’ve had, she’s so far down on my list of problems that I laugh in her face. Unfortunately for me, she takes it as a provocation and she spits, literallyspits,in my coffee. Automatically, I snag the glass of water she brought me and toss it over her head.

---