Page 100 of The Candlemaker

My jaw locked. Again, I felt the truth knocking at my lips. I could tell her everything—lay the reasoning bare at her feet right now. But I wouldn’t enter through that door until she trusted that I wouldn’t walk right back out of it again when she needed me most.

“And now, I’m here to stay.”

She let out a laugh of disbelief. It hurt, but it was deserved.

“All week you’ve wanted this, and now you’re hesitating to tell me why?”

Now I saw it. The curious light flickering in her honey eyes. The need to know. To figure it out.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

I stepped close to her again, feeling a small surge of victory when she didn’t back away. “Because I want to show you you can count on me first. Because when I tell you what happened, I don’t want there to be any doubt in your mind that I’d ever leave you like that again.”

Her throat bobbed. She was so used to banter—so used to a fight…I loved the look on her face when she saw someone fighting for her.

“And how do you plan on doing that?”

“Well, for starters, I’m going to let you stalk me.”

Her jaw dropped. “What? How? Wait—what if I don’t want to stalk you?”

Flustered Frankie was adorable. “You don’t have to, but you can.”

“I don’t understand.”Her brows bunched together.

“You sent me that photo, and I enabled the ‘share my location’ on your contact. So now, you can always look and see where I am,” I told her, watching her eyes widen. “Or not look. It’s up to you.”

“I probably won’t look,” she said defiantly.

“You probably won’t have to,” I agreed. “Because I plan on spending all my time with you.”

“So really, you’re the one who’s going to stalk me?” she countered but didn’t sound upset by the idea.

My head tipped, and I flashed her a grin. “I prefer to think of it as haunting.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Frankie

“Where is he?”

My head snapped up at my brother’s voice, my heart rocketing into my throat. “Jamie?—”

“Absolutely not, Frankie. He’s not welcome here. Not after what he did. How he left—how he left you…” His eyes picked up where his words left off: at my stomach.

I rolled my shoulders back. “I can handle this?—”

“I’m back here,” Chandler’s voice boomed.

Jamie whipped toward the back, too quick for me to grab him.Crap.I really needed to start telling people things, but this…I wasn’t ready to share that Chandler was back because I was afraid. Even after he’d continued to show up after a week of the cold shoulder, bringing me coffee that I couldn’t drink and blueberry scones that I devoured only to throw up later, he still showed up.

And after he learned about the baby, well, he wasn’t a stalker like I’d teased. He was my shadow. From dawn to dusk,he was by my side at the shop. At the store. Grabbing dinner. We didn’t talk about us or that kiss, only candles and the baby.

The very first thing he’d done was declare that he’d make the pumpkin spice batches in the back while I manned the store out front. Of course, I wanted to argue. No one else made my candles. No one else had ever made my candles. Okay, maybe my family and friends had made one or two here and there for fun, but not like this. Not for my business.

But the alternative was that this season, I’d be selling the scent of pumpkin spice puke. So, I caved.For the business, I reminded myself every time I heard him utter a curse from the back, adding another wax burn to his hands. Or every time he carried out a fresh batch of capped candles in nothing more than a t-shirt stretched full of muscles.

---