I don’t want to feel like I’m doing something I shouldn’t do. And I don’t want to rush into the deep end without wading in the shallow a little. I went too far too fast with Howard, and it’s how I got here. Right here, where I waver as I stand. I lower for my arm crutches, slipping my hands to the supports and turn my back on Jedd.
As I move forward, I feel his gaze tickle up my spine. I imagine him undressing me, taking his time, and I realize all I had to do was explain. I only had to tell him to slow down, or how I wanted it, but I’m afraid. If there’s one area my courage lacks the most, it’s in the bedroom department. The last two times, Jedd’s caught me off guard, but this…on my couch…with those words…it felt different. It felt too much like Howard, and my eyes prickle with tears.
Will I never be able to let him go? Will he ever stop haunting my thoughts? Will I ever be free of him?
I pause at my bedroom doorway, looking down the narrow hall to where Jedd is still seated on the couch. He’s watching me, and our eyes lock for a second.
Come after me, I want to whisper, feeling silly at the notion. Chase me, because just once I’d like a man to follow me and not feel like I’m the one running after him. Tears fill my eyes with the thought.
Jedd doesn’t look away, and I realize he’s waiting. He won’t move until I’m behind my door. With a final nod, I enter, hesitating until I hear the click of the latch, and then place my forehead on the wood and let the tears fall, cursing Howard all over again for ruining my life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
[Jedd]
“What’s all this?” I ask, standing outside a room with a large wooden desk, an old file cabinet, and a rack containing bars of soap. It’s been a difficult couple of days avoiding Beverly, so I hadn’t noticed how busy she’s been.
“Soap,” she states, and I turn to see her standing near my shoulder. Everything in me tells me to lean over and start my day as I wish with a good morning kiss, but I don’t. Something set her off the other night, and she hasn’t been able to tell me what I did.
“Soap?” I question.
“Soap,” she repeats, and I grin, finding the conversation similar to the one when she caught me in my outdoor shower. My mind shifts to taking a shower with Bee, and I’m feeling the twitch of a problem in my jeans. Why can’t I just keep it clean for five seconds? Then thinking of cleaning returns me to soap on Beverly’s body, and the dirty thoughts start all over again. I scrub a hand down my face and shake my head.
“You gave me the supplies, and it produced a lot.”
“I’ll say.” I laugh. There must be at least fifty bars in the slatted shelf on the table in this office.
“They need to cure. They’re sorted by the fragrance oils you purchased for me.” Honey. Citrus. Lavender. Lilac. Almond. These are the scents I ordered, not certain which one she’d want. “Naomi helped me. She told me I could add texture to the soap by sprinkling in bits and pieces of the coordinating product, like real lavender. Or make the soap original like lemon lavender, adding lemon zest in the combination. That reminds me, I’ll have to remember to pick up dried lavender from Samantha Hill at the winter market.”
“What’s the winter market?” I ask, noting it sounds like a farmers’ market.
“It’s a farmers’ market in the winter with seasonal items. Vegetables. Sometimes roots and bulbs. Winter fare and holiday crafts. That sort of thing,” Beverly offers. I nod as I look back at the soap.
“You should sell your soaps there.”
Beverly looks over at the piles and back at me, innocent surprise on her cheeks. “Why?”
“What else you going to do with fifty bars of soap?” I chuckle as I enter the room and reach for one, inhaling the unmarked bar but instantly recognizing the fragrance. Honey. And all Beverly. My eyes close as I recall running my nose along her skin, nipping her neck, and wanting so much more. She said I could explore, and then we stopped. What happened? I’ve been beating myself up for days, giving her the space I think she wants from me.
“There are sixty-three actually.” She pauses, watching me inhale the bar a second time. “You really think people would buy soap from me?”
The way Beverly questions herself makes me want to raze this Valley. Why doesn’t she have more confidence? Why haven’t people supported her instead of letting her become a shut-in?
“Sure, honey. Ladies like pretty things, right? Maybe make some kind of label for the outside so people know what fragrance each one is.”
Beverly stares at the rectangular shapes, and I can’t decide if the wheels are turning or if she’s thinking I’m crazy.
“Huh.” She snorts, turning to glance up at me. “Breakfast is ready.” Despite our silent truce, she’s been feeding me three times a day. The woman knows the way to a man’s heart. Now, if I could only figure out how to get to hers. I’d thought we were all good. Contract signed, making me a tenant, paying her rent so it felt legitimate that I could use the land. But she shut down after that. Is it the contract? Does she think that’s all I want? Does she think that’s it?
Oh, how so much has changed.
Her movement out of the room returns my thoughts to the office.
Sixty-two bars, I say to myself as I slip the one that smells like her into my pocket. My shower time just got a whole lot dirtier.
“I think Boone is still in the area,” I tell my sister as I lean against the fence, watching Lucky One and his friend, Firecrack, in the pasture after breakfast. The post before me wobbles under my weight, and I add checking fences to my list of things to do.
“Why do you think that?”
“I found a butter tub in the old house.”
Janice snorts through the phone. “Case solved, Sherlock. Mr. Crawford with a tub of butter in the kitchen.”
“Very funny,” I mock. “I hadn’t seen it before when I’d been there, and it just stood out. Too new. Too bright.” The morning after Bee slept on the cot with me, I noticed a plastic container sitting on her back steps. Not the butter tub, but another disposable bowl with a set of flowers on it, which made me think of the tub. It finally clicked what stood out to me at Hasting’s. A recyclable butter tub.
“Maybe he’s still at the house, and we’re just missing him,” Janice suggests, but we both know that’s wishful thinking. We’ve been there at odd hours to check for him, and I’d been there for days at a time removing materials from the old horse barn. He wasn’t around.
“I think I have a clue as to where he got it.” I take a deep breath and tug my ball cap from my head for a second. “I think Beverly’s feeding him.”
“Butter?” Janice squawks.
“No, silly. She made me some cookies and left them out on the back steps in the tub. I never got them. I think Boone took them. I keep seeing containers on her back porch. She’s leaving food for someone. Then when I saw the butter tub in the old house, I just put two and two together.”
“Let me get this straight. Beverly Townsen made you cookies but left them on her porch for you like a dog or something?”