Page 91 of The Candlemaker

“The cinnamon is my favorite.”

My heart didn’t trip or stumble; it fell flat on its face hearing his voice again. Three months, three years… I’d never forget its smooth velvet or its confident tenor.Nor the way it turned ragged with desire.

I shoved up out of the lounge chair, speeding to the front of my shop like there were flames at my heels.

I had to be imagining. Hallucinating. He couldn’t be—wouldn’t be.

“Frankie.”

If it wasn’t my jaw that dropped, it was the sound of my stomach plummeting to the floor.Chandler.

He was here—right here in my shop.Selling my candles.I wanted to scream, sob, slap him, and have sex with him all at once. It was the most ridiculous pregnancy craving I’d had yet.

My eyes greedily clamored over him, still partially convinced I was afflicted with pregnancy apparitions as well as nausea. His long legs. Broad chest. Shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows. The first time I’d met him in slight disarray, it had been feigned. This time, it wasn’t. The storm clouds in his gaze. The cobwebs of sleeplessness clinging under his eyes. Something had happened to him—somethingthat wasn’t my business.

I stiffened, the thought like a match to my fuse of fury. There were many things I wanted to do—wanted to say. Too many answers I wanted to know, but I was too smart now to risk something that might hurt in the end, no matter how good it felt in the moment.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, a dab of false sweetness in my tone.

Breathe, Frankie.

His gaze darkened. “What do you think I’m doing here?”

My lashes fluttered, and I asked innocently. “More business?”

I wasn’t going to give him an inch. I couldn’t. It was more than me—more than my heart—on the line. Twenty-eight years ago, my mother had been strong enough to do what she had to do to protect us, even if it meant becoming a single mom in the process, and now I’d do the same for my baby.

His growl made me shiver the way it imprisoned me still as he came closer.God, I missed the heat of him…and the real taste of his scent.My hands started to reach for my stomach, but I caught myself just in time and instead folded my arms over my chest.

“Frankie, we need to talk.”

Everything about him was stronger because it was familiar. His warmth. His scent. The shoots of electricity up my spine and the gnawing pool of ache down in my stomach. That was the worst of it—the way I still wanted him.

“We do? I don’t think so.” I continued to play dumb because the alternative was to do something stupid, like listen.

The pain in his eyes wounded me. He didn’t have a right to feel hurt; he was the one who left without a word. Disappeared. Never came back. He didn’t get to decide almost three months after ghosting me thatnowhe felt like talking.

“Frankie…” he rumbled and reached for me, and I jerked back like the touch of his fingers would’ve been the worst physical assault.

I banded my arms tighter and lifted my chin. “We had an arrangement, Chandler. A couple of nights sleeping at the inn to prove it was haunted. Those were the terms I agreed to, andnow you’ve sold the inn to Lou, so there can’t be anything more to discuss,” I said, unable to stop myself from adding another barb. “Unless you’re going to inform me of someotherloophole in this sale that will take the building away from my sisteragain.”

His jaw pulsed. He didn’t like that.Good. I didn’t much like him right now.

“Please, Frankie.” His expression shuddered. “Let me explain.”

No!

“There’s nothing to explain—nothing to talk about,” I said, frantically cutting him off before the barb of that temptation sank too deep and poisoned me with its ache. “It was a few nights and over. Nothing more than a ghost hunt.”

He needed to go. He needed to not explain. If he had to explain, then so did I. And I had no idea how I was going to do that. No idea what to say. No idea how to approach this conversation. Jamie always taught us tobegin with the end in mind.But I didn’t know what end I wanted. I didn’t know where I wanted this to go because, after three months of nothing, I never expected this.

“That’s not true?—”

“You’re right. It’s not,” I rambled blithely, anything to stop him from talking. “It was never a ghost hunt because there were no ghosts. You were right; I made the whole thing up to try and get you to sell Lou the inn.”

“I know, Frankie.” He let out a sound that could’ve been a chuckle in a different conversation.

“Oh, good. Well, then there’s nothing else to discuss. Business concluded.”My heart rattled like a marble in a tin can.

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