Page 27 of Dangerous December
“Look,” she added tersely. “I happily live on my own. I run my own business. I want everything to run just as smoothly during our brief partnership. That’s a reasonable expectation, isn’t it?”
He nodded, eyeing her as if she were some roadside bomb that might explode any second.
Around them, there was a bustle of activity. The banter and laughter of teenagers. Dev stood still as granite with a faraway look in his eyes, oblivious for a long moment.
He finally sighed. “You’re right.”
She’d been ready to argue another point, and his quiet words took her aback.
A chorus of whoops and hollers rose from the four corners of the building, followed by the sound of thundering feet as a herd of teenagers ran down the stairs to meet a delivery girl standing in the doorway with a stack of pizza boxes in her arms.
“That didn’t take long.” The tense set of his jaw relaxed, probably in relief at the interruption. “Excuse me—I need to pay her. Want some pizza?”
Beth shook her head.
Pulling his wallet from a back pocket, he strode to the delivery girl and smiled as he handed her four twenties plus a big tip.
He helped her spread out the pizza boxes on a makeshift table set up between a couple of sawhorses, and sent some of the boys out to her van for canned sodas.
It was the first time in years that she’d seen him offer such an unguarded smile without the filter of the emotional baggage he carried.
It was a smile that deepened the laugh lines fanning from the corners of his eyes and the deep creases bracketing his mouth, and her heart kicked in an extra beat.
She’d been so entranced by his deep dimples and his innate charisma years ago. He’d drawn her like no one else ever had...and she’d fallen completely, irrevocably in love...
Well, maybe not as irrevocably as she’d once thought. She closed her eyes, willing that image to disappear.
Despite everything that had happened before and after he’d walked out of her life, he still had the power to affect her as no one else ever had, and that was so unfair.
At a tug on her sleeve, she opened her eyes and found a teen with a high, bouncy ponytail staring at her with a worried expression.
“Are you okay, Ms. Carrigan? You look kinda pale. Are you dizzy? Maybe you should sit down.”
Dizzy...pale...
Beth could believe it, but sitting down wasn’t going to help. What she needed right now wasdistance.“I’m fine. You’d probably better get over there and grab some more pizza before the boys wolf it down.”
“If you’re sure...” The girl hesitated, then ran over to join her friends who were digging into the pizza boxes.
Maura had been right when she’d said it was a shame that Beth had to deal with Dev all over again...but not for the reasons she’d imagined.
He had shattered Beth’s life long ago, far past repairing, but there was a small part of her that still hadn’t let him go.
Maybe itwasbetter to tell him the truth. She would find the right time...one of these days. She’d gather her courage, and once it was over, she could finally, completely erase him from her heart.
A wave of anxiety roiled through her midsection at the thought. Anxiety that would build and build and rob her of sleep the longer she waited. Maybe, she needed to get it over...
Tomorrow.
CHAPTER TEN
Devlin pulled to a stop in front of the old motel and stared at the dreary row of units with the cheap, ill-fitting front doors. That, and the potholed dirt parking lot made his skin crawl.
He’d stubbornly stayed here too long, despite the peeling paint, the musty curtains, and the black mold creeping across the bathroom ceiling, unwilling to take the next step and move into the cottage at his parents’ house.
A move that seemed chillingly final, somehow, as if returning to that address would weld him to this town forever.
But now, he thought bitterly as he looked at the envelope on the dashboard, it was all a moot point.
