Dad considered Beckett for a moment. “You tell me? Are you really taking care of my girl? Because I don’t see a ring on her finger, even though the entire town is yapping about your engagement.” Dad looked at the front door. “And to make matters worse, you’ve got someone taking aim at you.”
Beckett’s brows lifted, and it took him a beat too long before he came up with an adequate response. “I wanted Maisey to pick out her own ring.”
He’d told Stoney it was getting sized, which had just been to shut the man up, but we were going to keep getting the question. If mom’s jewelry box hadn’t disappeared, I could have used her ring.
Dad shook his head as if in disgust. “I thought you were better with the ladies than this, Beckett. No matter what they tell you, a woman doesn’t want to pick out her own ring. It’s more romantic knowing you picked one out while thinking of her.”
When neither Beckett nor I responded, Dad’s expression changed, an amused twinkle appearing in his eyes.
“I’m gonna take this pizza inside while the two of you discuss that and whatever else is brewing here.”
Once he’d stepped past Beckett into the house, Dad turned and winked at me before heading toward the kitchen with a whistle that sounded a lot like Chicago’s “Hard To Say I’m Sorry.”
It made me want to both laugh and cry, knowing Dad was giving us space to make up after a nonexistent argument. I hated not being honest with him about what was going on between Beckett and me. But even if we’d been in a real relationship, I wasn’t sure I’d be able tomake upthe way Dad had insinuated, not knowing my father was on the opposite side of the house and assuming we were doing just that.
Beckett put the sander down and looked up at me from where he was kneeling. “I’ll get you a ring.”
I lowered my voice so my dad wouldn’t hear and said, “It’s stupid to spend money on one. Just let everyone think the same thing you told Stoney, that it’s at the jewelers.”
“For months?”
Months. I kept forgetting I was in this for months. Not just a day or two or a week. It would take months for the chief to retire and the city council to hire a replacement.
I’d be living with Beckett for months.
That did horrible things to my pulse. To my stomach. To my core.
How was I going to survive this when I’d nearly offered myself to Beckett twice in a matter of two days? When I’d nearly accepted his plea in the backyard, simply because I wanted to know what it was like to be consumed by him?
As if his thoughts had also journeyed to the same place, Beckett’s eyes turned molten, and the electricity leaped to life between us, zinging through the air like lightning waiting to spark.
His jaw tightened, and he picked the sander back up. “I’ll get you a ring,” he grunted out. “But right now, I need to fix this damn door.”
I pressed a hand to my stomach, guilt flickering in over the desire. The first note had clearly been left for me, which meant the second likely had been as well. Someone had ruined his beautiful door to leave me a nasty message. “I can help. I don’t know what to do, but you could tell me.”
“Thanks, but fixing it will let me work out some of my…anger before it blows.”
He wouldn’t look at me, and the knots in my stomach grew more knots. Pretty soon, there’d be a whole family of knots living in there.
But I also knew, from the way Beckett had hesitated over the words, what he needed to work out wasn’t just anger.
Because I understood those feelings, I let him get back to work while I did exactly what I’d wanted to do this morning—I avoided Beckett for the rest of the day.
Chapter Eighteen
Maisey
LOVE YOU TONIGHT
Performed by Ella Langley
PRESENT DAY
HIM: Shall I grab lunch for us on my way back from the station?
Minutes passed.
HIM: Maisey?