Page 40 of Whisking It All

“Apology accepted.”

She stood there in silence, watching the wind ruffle his hair, the stiffness in his shoulders, all coiled tension that he steadfastly focused anywhere but on her. She should have left—that’s what she was good at, and she’d said what she came to say. But she wasn’t ready to go. He’d opened up to her at the farmer’s market, and then she’d gone and shut down on him, and she knew he said he accepted her apology, but she didn’t want just that. She wanted him to understand.

“This is hard for me. Being here.”

“No one asked you to come to my restaurant, Tess.” He sounded tired, like just talking to her was exhausting.

“I meant in Aster Bay,” she said. Does he really not want me in his restaurant? “You’re the only one here who seems to want to know me as Tessa, as the person I am now. Even my dad can’t stop calling me TJ, like he still sees me as the kid I used to be. All these people think they know me—”

“Maybe they just want the chance to get to you know,” he snapped.

“But I don’t know them. All these people who knew my mother... I was eight years old when we left. Why don’t I remember them?” She bit her lip to stop from talking. She hadn’t meant to say so much.

Jamie stared at her, his brow furrowed like he was trying to peel away her layers. She wrapped her arms around herself as though that would help. “Your mom kept you on a pretty short leash,” he said at last. “Maybe you didn’t know we were all around.”

She sat next to him on the ground, careful to leave a few inches of space between them. “Do you remember me? From back then?”

He nodded and took another sip of his beer, keeping his gaze out over the open water. “A bit. Your mom didn’t like you being around Ethan’s friends much.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” He glanced at her, his gaze softening. “Your mom had a rough time of it. I don’t think she knew who she could trust. And she always made it clear that she had no intention of staying in town. Maybe she didn’t want you to get attached.”

Tessa nodded and looked back over the water. “Mom used to say it was us against the world. But I think maybe that wasn’t true.”

“She felt like it was.”

“Yeah.” She ran her eyes over him again, ending back on his face, the stubbled line of his jaw. “She wouldn’t like me being here now.”

“At my restaurant, or in Aster Bay?”

“Both.”

He stared at her, his eyes darting between her own. What was he thinking? About her mother keeping a young child away from her father and his friends? Or about what she would say if she knew what had happened between Tessa and Jamie in that hotel room?

She reached for his beer. “May I?”

He handed it to her, and she took a long pull of the hoppy liquid before passing the bottle back. Her lips tingled when he took his own sip as though he were pressing his mouth to hers and not just to the same curved piece of glass where her mouth had just been.

“Be honest with me, Tessa. That night… Did you remember me?”

“No.” She turned to face him, her knee pressing against his thigh. “I swear to God, Jamie, I didn’t know who you were.”

“I believe you.”

Relief washed over her as his words settled between them. She hadn’t realized how badly she wanted him to trust her.

“What are you doing here, Tess?” His voice was low, almost hoarse.

She blinked, thrown off-kilter by the question. “I told you. I needed a job and I—”

“Not in Aster Bay. Here. On my roof.” He met her eyes, the moonlight glinting off his irises like the eyes of a predator in the dark.

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I wanted to apologize.”

“Yeah. You said that.”

“I meant it.”

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