Page 57 of The Candlemaker

My heart did some kind of flutter inside my chest, traitor that it was. More excuses piled on my tongue, weighing it into silence for a second.He’s only here for business. We both only care about business. Neither of us want a relationship. He lives in Boston. He’s going to sell the inn to some heartless developer, and I could never be with someone who cared so little about my family?—

“Oh, look at the time. I’ve got to run. See you both for dinner at the house.” She moved with surprising speed out of range of further conversation.

The door didn’t have a chance to shut behind her before Chandler slipped back through it, his eyes and head ducked.

I needed to get out of here. Get some space. Give us both an excuse to get out of dinner and prepare for another night in the same bed.

“I’m sorry about Gigi. Don’t feel obligated to do anything she asked. I’m closing up for the day?—”

“You’re coming with me,” he said, his voice like gravel.

Something was wrong.The tone of his voice. The tension on his face. His jaw was wrenched so tight, it looked about to snap.

“What?” I folded my apron in my arms. “Today’s my half-day?—”

“And we have to go.” He took the fabric from my hands and stalked to the back to hang it up.

I bristled, blaming my irritation on his bold presumption and not on the unsettling idea that he wasthatChandler. “I don’t just go places with strangers when they tell me.”

“You just share a bed with them for a whole week?” His brow arched as he stopped in front of me.

Five nights.“And if I have plans?”

“Do you?” he dared.

My throat bobbed as I forced myself to swallow. “No.”

“Okay then.” He angled toward the front door.

I grabbed my bag and followed, locking the door to my store behind us. “Do I get to know where I’m being kidnapped to?”

“You’re not being kidnapped.” He held the passenger door of his car open for me.

I paused. “I’m being taken against my will.”

“You’re being taken,” he replied low. “But not against your will.”

He wasn’t wrong. Even with no answers, I was going to gowith him because of the look in his eyes. It was broken and painful, and I wondered what in this world had the power to make this man weak.

“Where are we going?” I refused to get in without an answer.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “To see my mom.”

Chapter Fourteen

Frankie

We rode in silence,but if there was one thing I’d learned from Lou, it was how silence could speak volumes.

He pushed the speed limit, but it was the drum of his thumb on the wheel that shouted we couldn’t get there fast enough. The pulse of his jaw screamed unrest.

I tried to focus on the blur of our surroundings—the thick of the trees growing denser as we drove inward from the coast and into the blanket of forest. Backroad after backroad until a discreet hand-carved sign labeled Edgewood Estatemarked the entrance to drive that tucked back through the trees to a large colonial manor house with several cars parked in the lot.

At first, I thought this was his mom’s home; I guess, technically, it was, but it wasn’t hers alone. We parked, and when we made it to the front porch, there was a young nurse in scrubs helping an older man up from one of the rocking chairs dotting the covered porch.

His mom lived in a nursing home.

Again, my questions would have to wait because the door opened and we were greeted by a middle-aged woman wearing the same sage green scrubs as the other nurse. Her name, Cathy, was embroidered underneath the Edgewood Estate logo.

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