Close to You

you.”
    What she really wanted to cap off this
damn walk was a lunatic following her home. She lengthened her
stride. Worst case, she would run into the clubhouse and ask
someone to call the police.
    “ You see, I play golf here
three mornings a week with my friend Don, and every morning I see
you right as we get to this hole.” He waved at the green to the
left. “Don was so sick of me waxing poetic about you cresting the
hill that he threatened to stop playing with me unless I talked to
you.”
    Some feminine part of her that she
thought had been buried with Harry felt flattered. Mostly though,
she was annoyed. “And now you’ve talked to me, so you can go back
to Don.”
    “ Are you married?” he asked
out of the blue.
    That stopped her in her tracks.
“What?”
    His light eyes crinkled. “It’s a yes
or no answer.”
    She swallowed thickly, holding on to
her necklace. “No.”
    Tension visibly melted from his body.
“Good. Have dinner with me.”
    “ No.” She started to walk
again.
    “ Wait.” He caught her
hand.
    The touch shocked her, and she gasped.
No one had held her hand in over eight years.
    His radiated heat and strength. The
calluses on his palm scratched her skin in an intriguing way. He
held her firmly, but loose enough that she could pull away if she
wanted.
    Suddenly she wasn’t sure what she
wanted. She looked into his eyes.
    “ I’ve handled this badly.
Let me start over. My name is Grant, and I’d love to take you to
dinner. Or for a beverage of some sort, if you’re more comfortable
with that.” He gazed at her in a way that made her feel like he was
looking deep inside her.
    “ No.” Panicking, she tugged
her hand free. If he looked closely enough, he’d see how dead she
was on the inside. The thought of him seeing that upset her more
than she’d have thought. She hurried away.
    “ Tell me your name, at
least,” he called after her.
    “ No.” She walked faster,
feeling his gaze follow her.
    She picked up her pace to almost a
jog, even after she knew she was out of his sight. When she got
home, she bolted the door behind her, leaning against it, panting.
Sweat dripped down her hairline.
    She never sweated.
    She wiped it with her hand, trying to
get her breathing under control. He’d disrupted her equilibrium,
thrown her off her groove. She needed to find her center again. A
shower would help.
    A niggle at the back of her mind told
her that the axis had shifted.
    “ No,” she said out loud.
Her voice echoed eerily in the large foyer. Nothing had been
changed. Some strange man with an even stranger name had accosted
her—that was all. It didn’t mean anything.
    Rolling her pearls with her fingers,
she went to shower. She had an appointment to get ready
for.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    The timer pinged at the same moment
Eve’s cell phone began to ring.
    The only person who called her this
early in the morning was her father. Sighing, she grabbed a
potholder with one hand and her phone with the other.
    A New York number, she saw as she
opened the oven to take the cinnamon buns out. She answered it
before it went to voicemail. “Hello?”
    “ Eve Alexander,
please.”
    She recognized the clipped, hurried
voice, and her heart began beating fast in anticipation. “This is
Eve.”
    “ Eve, this is Carmen
McKnight.”
    This was it. They were going to do
Daniela Rossi’s cookbook party in her shop. She bounced a couple
times on her bare feet but managed to keep her voice all business.
“What can I do for you, Carmen?”
    “ I received your proposal.
I have to say, it looked good. The location is charming, and the
local demographic fits our target audience. But we have a
concern.”
    “ Whatever it is, I’m sure
we can address it,” she said confidently.
    “ We went on Yelp to look up
the reviews for your coffeehouse. The reviews in the past were
impressive, however the latest ones left us concerned.”
    Her stomach lurched a little and the
tray in her hand clattered to the counter. “Which
reviews?”
    “ The most recent. We take
that sort of thing with a grain of salt, however these reviews
regarded the baked goods.”
    “ What?” Indignation raised
her pitch an octave. “Someone complained about my
baking?”
    “ Yes. They wrote”—there was
a rustle of paper over the line—”’ the
scone I had sat in my stomach like a stone for the rest of the
day .’”
    Eve’s temper flared. Her
scones were perfect —fluffy and light and flavorful. No one had