Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

The Whale of a Tale bookstore was blessedly quiet several mornings later. The shop’s owner, Paige, didn’t seem to mind her lack of customers. She offered Everett a wide smile from where she sat at the counter writing Christmas cards. He nodded his greeting as he made his way to the back of the store.

He pulled up short when he saw Kitty sitting in his usual chair. A couple of to-go cups from the Java Jolt sat on the table in front of her. Guilt licked at his gut. He’d been ignoring the woman since the party the other night. It wasn’t because he hadn’t enjoyed their date immensely. He had. And he was pretty sure she did, too. But his argument with Gidget had dredged up the memories of the last days of his late wife’s life. It was insane, but he felt unfaithful to Keeley when even looking at Kitty.

Except looking at Kitty made him feel lighter. More in the moment. Whole.

“I brought you a coffee. Lois claimed she fixed it just the way you like it,” she said.

No interrogation about why he hadn’t contacted her. No tantrum. No artifice at all. The woman was a gem. Not only that but, she’d also brought coffee.

He let his messenger bag slide down his arm before placing it on an empty chair. Then he walked over to where she sat and stood over her. Kitty had to crane her neck to look at him. Without bothering to ask permission, he leaned down and gently pressed his lips to hers.

“What was that for?” she murmured.

“For the coffee.” He kissed her again. “For being kind.” His lips touched hers once more. “Most of all, for being patient with me.”

“You haven’t even tried the coffee.” Her joke came out sounding a little breathless.

Everett liked that he’d flustered her. He also liked the taste of her lips. He liked that a lot.

“I’m sure it’s perfect.” Just like you.

Her shy grin was glorious. And it touched parts of him that hadn’t been awake for a long time.

“Do you have plans for today?” he asked impulsively. His desire to spend the day with her made him sound a tad desperate.

Kitty shook her head. “It’s my day off. I don’t have much planned other than laundry.”

“What do you say we play hooky together? We can go explore the turtle sanctuary. Walk along the beach. Climb to the top of the lighthouse.”

She laughed. “Well, I do want to pick up some lighthouse ornaments at the gift shop.”

He bit back the cry of jubilation that made its way up into his throat. “Perfect,” he said instead.

Everett reached down and took her hand. He gently tugged her up until they were nearly nose to nose.

“I can’t think of a better way to spend the day than with you,” she whispered before kissing him softly.

His belly did a flip flop. “Me neither.”

He grabbed his messenger bag and one of the coffees while she picked up the other. They were almost to the front of the shop when the sheriff walked in.

“Morning, beautiful,” Lamar called as he swiped off his hat.

“Hi, Dad.” Paige embraced her father. “What’s up?”

The sheriff pulled a leaflet from an envelope he was carrying. “I was wondering if you could display this in your window.”

“Of course I will.” Paige took the piece of paper from her father, grabbed a roll of tape and immediately hung it beside the door. “Tanner and I already bought a pile of toys to donate.”

“So did I,” Kitty added. “Hayden mentioned you might want some stockings this year, too.”

“That would be wonderful,” the sheriff replied. “Thank you.”

“The town is having a toy drive?” Everett asked.

“It’s sponsored by our veteran’s group, actually,” the sheriff explained. “We are small but mighty. Xander Fisk over at the gym organizes our meetings. You should stop by. We welcome anyone who’s been touched by combat.”

Something ugly shot through Everett at the sheriff’s invitation. A cocktail crafted from guilt, anger and fear. Dammit, he’d been trying to outrun the memories ever since his confrontation with Gidget the other day. Now, his heart was racing again, and beads of sweat began to break out on the back of his neck.

Kitty, God bless her, seemed to sense his unease. She threaded her fingers with his and gave his hand a gentle squeeze. The gesture grounded him immediately, and his breath came more easily once again.

“We’ll pick up some toys today. Do they need to be wrapped?” he asked.

“We host a big party at Knotical where we wrap the gifts,” Kitty explained.

He beamed at her. “That sounds like fun. Count me in.” He turned back to the sheriff and his daughter. “Looks like we’re off to do some Christmas shopping,” he said, leaving the sheriff’s offer to get chummy with the town’s veterans unanswered.

“Yes, Madelaine, West is pounding away at the keyboard,” Elle lied to her boss for the second time this week. “He hasn’t given me an end date, but I’m sure it will be well before the end of the year.”

Her skin began to tingle where the hives were no doubt about to break out. She hadn’t lied this much since middle school when she would do and say anything to get out of gym class.

“That’s wonderful,” Madelaine replied, sounding as if Elle had just told her Santa Claus was real. “We knew you could do it. Now everyone will be able to relax and enjoy the holiday season.”

Everyone but me.

She had no idea if West would write another word in his book. The two had been avoiding one another for the past week. According to Paige, he spent a lot of time working at the bookstore. Although what the man was “working” on was a mystery. He had less than four weeks to finish.

If he didn’t, Elle could kiss her promotion goodbye. She’d be lucky to even have a job to go back to. And wouldn’t that just be a big lump of coal in her stocking? Not only would she be the most unsuccessful McAlister, but she’d also be unemployed. No job and no best friend to speak of.

She glanced through the blinds of the mayor’s office. The sheriff’s department was catty-corner across the town square. She’d spent countless hours pretending to work— West wasn’t the only one who got to goof off —while watching for any sign of Hayden. Apparently, the man had engineered some sort of invisible cloaking device because he was nowhere to be found.

Livi was gone, too. She was in Atlanta for a few days to sample upholstery. Had Hayden gone with her? The misery that came with that thought made her chest ache.

“And thank you for keeping up with the online teasers.” Madelaine interrupted her spiraling thoughts, thankfully. “Your enterprising attitude is an asset to the magazine.”

As if she had a choice. Still, she was glad to have something to occupy her time this week. Besides the clickbait social media pieces for Vantage , she’d been busy helping Bernice with Chances Inlet’s social media. Once word got out that Elle was giving away free advice, every small business in town had formed a line out of the door of city hall seeking her help.

“You’re right. This town does need a newspaper,” she said once she finished several posts for the Bed and Biscuit kennel and groomers.

Bernice scoffed. “They say newspapers are dead. Folks want to hold the headlines in their hand.”

Elle grinned. “You should have gone into advertising. That’s a killer slogan.”

The older woman harumphed. “We need to do something. We had a great crowd over the holidays last year. But even your mom is complaining that occupancy is down.”

There had been fewer guests at the inn this week, she’d noticed. Elle was grateful for the privacy. But now she worried how this economic downturn might affect her mother’s business.

“The mayor says there is no money in the budget for a new website,” Bernice continued. “And none of those advertising magazines want to set up shop here. We are not ‘densely populated enough.’”

Elle scrolled through the town’s website. It wasn’t flashy, but it did the trick. All it needed was some updated photos. And a killer story to pull people in.

A knock on the window startled her. She looked up to see her brother, Ryan with his nose pressed against the glass, wearing a goofy smile on his face. Except Elle was more captivated by the other nose pressed up to the glass. The answer to Bernice’s prayers was in her brother’s arms, wagging his tail.

“Bernice, do you still have that elf costume?”

Hayden yanked open the door to his workshop, not bothering to hide his annoyance. As usual, Simone wasn’t picking up the vibes he was putting down.

“Ooo, Lawd! You look like you’ve been through the wringer.” She plowed past him inside.

Xander followed her. “What she said.”

Simone tossed Hayden his T-shirt. “Your body is glistening like the cover of one of my grammy’s old romance books.” She fanned herself. “We are getting calls down at the station of women getting whiplash as they walk by.”

Hayden rolled his eyes. He was covered in sawdust. Not to mention sticky from the machines in the tiny room that ran hot no matter what the temperature was outside. He pulled on the shirt anyway.

“There. Happy now?” He walked back over to the table legs he was carving with the wood lathe.

“You’re right, Simone. The situation is worse than we thought,” Xander fake whispered.

“For crying out loud. Can’t you both see I have work to do?” Hayden snapped.

A tense silence settled over the workshop, making the hum of the lathe sound like a jumbo jet. Hayden dragged his fingers through his hair. He had no right speaking to his friends that way. It wasn’t their fault his life was effed up.

“Sorry. That was uncalled for.” He blew out a breath.

“Are you okay?” Simone asked, her tone more subdued now. “You never miss work.”

“I had some PTO I needed to take, or I’d lose it.”

Xander nodded. “I haven’t seen you at the gym all week, though. And you missed a meeting.”

Hayden gestured to the parts of the table he was building. “I took the PTO to finish a project.”

It was a lie. And judging by the looks on his friends’ faces, they knew it, too.

Simone pulled a wrapped sandwich from the Fog Horn Deli bag she was carrying. “We thought you might want lunch.” She glanced around the room for a spot to put it that wasn’t covered with sawdust.

“Here.” Xander indicated a stool near the window where he set a drink down. “We’ll let you get back to it,” he said. “You know where to find us if you need us.”

Hayden suddenly felt like the biggest dick alive. These two people had helped him through some of his darkest days, the trio bonding over their shared horrors of combat. Slogging through the healing process together. And now, when they were only trying to be kind, he was treating them like crap.

“I kissed Elle,” he blurted out when Simone and Xander got near the door.

Xander whistled as he spun around, his brows hiked to his hairline. Simone turned more slowly. Her eyes were wide as saucers. She opened and closed her lips several times without emitting any sound. It cost her to keep her comments to herself, but she managed it. His friends stared at him wordlessly until Hayden picked up his drink and took a long pull from the straw.

“ Annnd? ” Simone demanded when he finished.

Hayden shrugged.

“Oh, no.” Evidently, she couldn’t keep her opinions in check for more than thirty seconds. To be fair, it was thirty seconds longer than Hayden expected of her.

She charged across the room. “You don’t get to spring something like that on us without elaborating further. I need context. I need details. I need all. Of. It. ”

Xander made a beeline for the small mini fridge in the corner. “Hell, I probably need a beer for this.”

Sighing heavily, Hayden dropped onto one of the chairs he’d built yesterday. Simone found a rag and swept off the sawdust from the small table Elle had ogled the week before. Xander moved to put his beer down on top of it. Hayden let out a hiss. His friend jerked the can back.

“Have a care, man.” Hayden slapped a piece of cardboard onto the table. He motioned for Xander to put his beer on top of it.

Simone dug the rest of the sandwiches from the bag and handed one to Xander. She grabbed Hayden’s just as he reached for it.

“No eating until you spill the tea,” she ordered. “One of us has to work today, and I only have twenty-eight minutes before I clock back in.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to say.” Probably because he was as stunned and confused by the situation as his friends. He was supposed to be opening himself up to new possibilities. Instead, he’d kissed Elle. And it had been just as arousing as he remembered.

“You finally kissed your best friend since kindergarten. How about starting with how it came about,” Xander suggested.

“It wasn’t the first time we kissed,” he admitted.

Simone choked on her sandwich. Xander patted her on the back until she recovered.

“Are you kidding me?” she wheezed. “And you are just telling us this now ?”

“Seriously, dude. That would explain a few things,” Xander added.

Simone shot the gym owner a bug-eyed look.

“What?” Xander said. “Am I the only one who’s noticed they haven’t been text buddies for the past year? Or that the few times she’s come back to town, they’ve been awkward around each other?”

Simone slowly pivoted her gaze back to Hayden, her eyes narrowed to slits. “Now that you mention it . . .”

Hayden took another drink. “It was last New Year’s. Everyone was in town because her brothers Miles and Gavin were marrying their brides in a double wedding. The week before, Elle caught her boyfriend cheating on her.”

“Whoa,” Xander said.

“Yeah. She didn’t take it well. Even worse, she didn’t want her family to know. Something about it spoiling the big day.”

“Mmm,” Simone said. “That sounds like Elle.”

“Yeah, well not her best plan. The wedding festivities and all the associated hoopla was like rubbing salt in an open wound. She decided to self-medicate with booze.”

“As one does in that situation,” Xander interjected.

Hayden shot him a look. “I was on duty that night so the sheriff could enjoy the party with his new family. When I stopped by the reception to check on her, she took one look at me and started crying.”

“As one does in that situation,” Simone echoed.

“She begged me to get her out of there so her family wouldn’t see her,” Hayden continued. “I took her to my place in hopes of sobering her up before she went back to the inn.”

Not his best idea.

“She was talking nonsense about not being good enough. About not being desirable. I simply meant to comfort her when I hugged her.” He groaned. “She got the wrong idea and started kissing me.”

For as long as he’d known Elle, he’d never looked at her in a romantic way. At least not consciously. Once her lips landed on his, however, he was a goner. Elle was no longer his “buddy” of twenty-something years, the person who knew all his secrets. She was a living breathing sensual woman who had the power to drive his body wild.

“Holy moly. And you kissed her back.” Xander sounded disappointed.

“Are you kidding? She was drunk. No way was I going to take advantage of her like that.”

He was a liar.

Given the situation, Hayden might have lingered a bit longer than was appropriate. He blamed the shock of the kiss for his hesitance to end it. His friends didn’t need to know that, though.

Simone breathed a sigh that sounded like relief. “On behalf of women everywhere, thank you.”

“But you liked the kiss, right?” Xander demanded.

Hell, yeah!

“That has no bearing on the situation,” he replied instead.

Simone snorted. “It does if you felt something for her. She’s your best friend, Hayden. And who knows? She might be more than that. Yet instead of resolving whatever this is between you guys, you avoided discussing it when she was sober. Dude, you dodged the subject for an entire year .”

“You said it yourself,” he argued. “She’s my best friend. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.”

“I call bull. You are too chickenshit to talk with her about your feelings is more like it,” Simone muttured. “What happened after the kiss?”

“She cried herself to sleep at my place.”

He got up and walked over to the window. Seeming to detect his uneasiness, Beula jumped up on the sill and nudged her head beneath his hands. Hayden absently stroked the cat’s soft fur as the memories flooded back.

His months in rehab weren’t as torturous as that night had been. Getting her away from the reception so she wouldn’t embarrass herself in front of her family was his singular thought at the time. Taking her to his place was only natural. They hung out there whenever she was in town.

As soon as they arrived, he’d headed to the kitchen to get her some water and a packet of liquid IV. When he returned to the living room, Elle was shimmying out of her velvet bridesmaid dress, leaving her wearing only a push-up bra and thong panties. Simply recalling the vision of her miles and miles of flawless skin begging to be touched had him semi-aroused again.

Somehow, he managed to grab a T-shirt from his gym bag he’d left by the door and tossed it to her. She struggled to get it over her elaborate updo. Of course, she giggled before nearly toppling over. He reluctantly reached in to help her. They both froze when skin met skin.

Then the waterworks started again. Hayden had never wanted to physically hurt someone as badly as he wanted to punish Jeremy Keneally. The bastard made Elle feel less than, and Hayden hated him for it. Wrapping his arms around her to offer her comfort had been automatic. Brotherly almost.

That was until her lips found his.

Nothing was tentative or shy about the way she kissed him, either. She was demanding and needy, as if her life depended on their bodies being melded together. And Hayden, being a red-blooded male, was all in for it.

Her floral scent wafted over him, wrapping him in a sensuous fog. He allowed himself to savor her sweet taste. As ashamed as he was by his body’s immediate and intense reaction to her, he conceded that he’d be a fool not to spend a minute sampling what she was offering.

Until his conscience began to bellow at him. When he finally dug up the strength of will to tear his lips from hers, he forced himself to take a giant step back. And then another one.

Shit , he’d whispered.

It was the wrong thing to say. Her face contorted into a mask of pain. Then, she hightailed it into his bedroom and slammed the door.

He didn’t want to leave things like that. His body screamed at him to go beg her to forgive him. Only he knew where they’d end up if he did. Lucky for him, gallantry, steel will and common sense won out. He retreated to the lumpy sofa in his workshop, staring at the ceiling as he tried to sleep.

“The next day, she jetted back to New York without a word. As Xander has so astutely pointed out, we’ve barely spoken since.”

Simone shook her head. “Mm, mm, mm.”

Xander held his hands up. “That explains the yearlong tiff. But how do you explain kissing her now?”

Hayden dragged his hands through his hair again. “Elle called me out. She reacted exactly as Simone predicted she would.”

No surprise, Simone donned a smug smile. “You don’t say.”

“She essentially baited me into kissing her.” Not that it took much coaxing. A stronger man would have made tracks out of that storage room before he made a fool of himself.

“Annnd ?”

“And it was fucking amazing, okay? Are you satisfied?” He shouted so loudly the windows rattled.

His friends looked at him like he was certifiable.

Simone blinked a few times before speaking. “Okaaay, and you’re holing yourself up in your workshop because . . .?”

Because Elle is my person. And I can’t risk losing her if this doesn’t work out.

And it wasn’t going to work out. Elle’s ultimate goal was to be worthy of the McAlister name. And he was fairly certain that meant pursuing what Vantage offered her.

He decided right then and there that he was done holding it against her. Despite her mixed signals the other night, he knew her better than anyone else. And that meant he knew what she would choose: friendship over something more. Hayden would have to be satisfied with that.

“Because that kiss won’t lead to anything,” he explained.

Simone looked over at Xander, who wore an equally bewildered look. “What am I missing here?”

“My guess is because Elle’s life is in New York,” Xander surmised.

Hayden touched his finger to his nose.

“So? Change her mind.” Simone made it sound so easy.

He chuckled to himself. “Elle is a McAlister. McAlisters do big things. She doesn’t want to be left out of that legacy. That will always be more important than her and me. We are better off as friends.”

“Says you!” Simone shouted. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Hayden sighed. “Just because there’s a spark doesn’t mean there will be a happily ever after, Simone. Chances Inlet is my home. Elle is set on making New York—or anywhere else—hers. End of story.”

The room was quiet once again. None of them bothered to bring up the option of him following Elle. They all knew that wouldn’t happen.

“So, what happens now?” Xander asked.

“I eat the sandwich my partner is holding captive, and I finish making this table,” Hayden said with more confidence than he’d felt in the past few days. “Tomorrow, I go back to work.” He reached down and squeezed Simone’s shoulder. “Elle will be back chasing her dream in New York soon. As she should. She deserves it.” He sighed. “If we pursue whatever this is, it will only mess up our friendship. And that’s too important to me to blow up.”

“Really?” Her eyes were wary. “That’s your plan?”

He nodded. “I’m finally listening to you both. I’m keeping Elle in the friend zone where she belongs. And I’m making myself available for other relationships.”

“Promise?” Simone asked.

Hayden gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze as his answer. Xander toasted him with his beer. Simone placed her hand over Hayden’s. He was grateful for these friends in his life. His and Elle’s paths may keep them apart, but he wouldn’t be alone.