The Valentine Box (The Box Books #3)

February 5

Luke

R ather than text her, tonight I call. For reasons both altruistic and selfish. A person can’t work around the clock the way she has the last few days—she needs a break. And ever since we made out on the elephino, I’ve been dying to do it again. Make out, that is—with or without the elephino actually being present. I think about her constantly, and I guess maybe our timing is still off, but now that I’ve finally experienced just how good it can be between us, I’m not gonna let that stand in our way.

After five rings, she picks up. “Luke,” she says, sounding harried. “Sorry it took so long to answer. I was getting pies out of the oven.”

“Let me take you for a burger,” I say, cutting to the chase.

She sounds tired, replying, “You have no idea how good that sounds to me right now. But there’s so much to do. I’m too busy.”

I’m about to answer when I hear Geneva, who I remember as a waitress from back in the day, say, “Are you really that busy? That you can’t take an hour for yourself when a handsome man wants the pleasure of your company?”

Taylor’s sigh is loud enough to hear over the phone. “You’ve seen all the orders. Those have to be my top priority right now. February sustains us for the rest of the year as you well know. And if we can get all these orders filled and I don’t have to start issuing refunds, maybe making ends meet this year won’t be as challenging as usual.” Then she finally addresses me . “Did you catch all that?”

“I did,” I tell her.

“So you get it, right? You’re a business owner. You understand.”

I hesitate just briefly before informing her, “To tell you the truth, I’ve never had a run on hiking equipment or mountain bikes that kept me at the shop late, and our hiking excursions sell out all the time, but that’s because we put a limit on them. Which…maybe you should consider doing at this point?”

“No way,” she insists without missing a beat. “Every one of these orders could turn out to be a loyal customer. I can’t afford to sacrifice this opportunity.”

“Okay,” I answer. “And I do understand. But…remember when you told me to keep trying.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s probably gonna happen with this, too.”

On the other end of the line, she lets out another sigh, but this one sounds more dreamy than frustrated. “You’re sweet.”

“Don’t let it get around,” I tease.

An hour later, I walk into the Sweetheart Bake Shop. It’s after seven and the dining area is empty, but I can tell the kitchen is hopping. When a harried but gorgeous redhead pops her face up into the window, I can’t help but smile.

“What are you doing here?”

I shrug. “I figure if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I’m here to help. I know zero about baking, but put me to work however you can.”

She leaves whatever she’s doing and comes out behind the counter. That’s when my eyes drop to the valentine box, sitting in front of her with its lid off. “What’s happening here?” I ask.

“I got sidetracked. I took a few minutes about an hour ago to do my weekly drawing, but the phone rang and I never came back to it.” She holds out the box. “Would you like to do the honors, sir?”

I put my hands up in a backing-off motion, and say teasingly, “I don’t know—that’s kind of a big responsibility.”

She just shakes the open heart-shaped box in my face and I can see I’m wasting the time of a busy lady. So I draw out a card and read it. “Billy Finch.”

“Excellent,” she says.

“I’ll let him know,” I tell her. “Save you one little task.”

“Thank you. I’m actually a day late drawing it. Usually, I do it like clockwork.”

I nod. “Kyra told me you go through it a lot.”

She blushes, just a little. “Almost daily. I don’t know why. Something about it comforts me.”

“I’m sure it keeps you feeling connected to your dad,” I say—then I look around. “What can I do to help?” And when I realize maybe it’s a tall order finding a baking job for a guy with no kitchen skills, I drop my gaze to Maggie, who has her front paws up on her gate, wanting attention. “Does the dog need walked?”

Taylor’s pretty green eyes go wide. “Oh, would you? Because she totally does! I’m being a bad dog mom again.”

“I don’t think you could be a bad dog mom if you tried,” I inform her, after which I lean across the counter, lift her chin with one bent finger, and lean in for a quick kiss.

“Oh, that was nice,” she says. It comes out in this really innocent way I feel in my gut. I’m not sure she’s been kissed a lot. And I’m glad to be the guy changing that.

When I come back from walking Maggie down to the park, I’ve made a decision. After returning the dog to her gated area, I enter the kitchen to find three women up to their elbows in flour and dough and cookie sheets and cupcake pans. “I have an announcement to make,” I declare. “I’m sorry if this leaves you ladies short-handed, but I’m taking Taylor for a burger.”

“Thank God,” Kyra says. “She’s driving us crazy.”

Taylor spins to gape at her, a heart-shaped cookie cutter in her hand.

“And your mother will be here in the morning,” Geneva adds. “That’ll be a whole extra set of hands. We’ll get caught up in no time. And you need a break. Kyra and I will finish up what’s already in progress, then lock up for the night.”

Taylor glances toward the front of the shop. “But—Mags.”

Geneva marches over to her, a chocolate-spattered apron covering her pink T-shirt. “Give me the key to your house.”

“But—”

“Give. Me. The key. She’ll be there waiting for you when you get home. Probably fast asleep. Now go. The both of you. Let Kyra and me have a little peace for the first time in three long days.”

Taylor’s eyes go wide. “Well, if that’s how ya feel…”

“We do,” Geneva confirms. “Off with you now.” She follows the demand with shooing motions.

“You heard the lady,” I tell her, ushering her from the kitchen with a hand at the small of her back. “Let’s get outta here.”

“But I’m a mess,” she turns to argue.

“A gorgeous mess,” I say, after which I hear the other two cooing over that in back. I’m pretty sure they’re on my side.

After she digs in her purse and delivers a key to Geneva, who followed us to the front, she reaches for her coat on a hook—as Geneva says, “Apron.”

“Huh?”

“Take off your apron.”

Glancing down at herself, she rolls her eyes and says, “Okay, you guys are right. I do need a break.”

When we arrived at the Little Dipper, Paul was just about to close up early, but he insisted on grilling us a couple burgers. I tried to let him off the hook, but he wasn’t hearing it.

Now we sit in my dad’s big GMC Tahoe with the engine running, eating our hamburgers, a too-big-for-two-people basket of fries on the console between us. Paul is gone and the lot is empty, so I’ve positioned the SUV toward the river, where a ribbon of moonlight shimmers on the water in the distance.

“Thanks for talking some sense into me,” she says between bites. “I got a little overwhelmed with all the orders. I’m excited about them, and want to make sure we get them all done. But you and Geneva are right—Mom is coming to help, and it’ll be okay.”

“Getting away from work is good for your sanity,” I tell her. “Thank God I have the horses—and, lately, you—to get my head out of all the other stuff I’m juggling. Between dealing with my own business remotely, working on estate issues, dealing with the Northcutt decision, and now getting plans in place for a horse sanctuary…” I stop, run my hand back through my hair. “It’s a lot.”

“It is a lot,” she agrees. “In fact, when you put it that way, it makes my cookies and cakes sound like nothing.”

I’m quick to shake my head. “No, we’ve both got a lot to deal with right now.”

“Well,” she says with a glance in the general direction of the farm, “your dad would be very proud of you for handling it all so well.”

Letting that sink in, I blow out a sigh. “You know, ever since I found that scrapbook, it’s had me thinking…maybe I should have come home more often. Maybe we could have had a better relationship if I’d tried harder.”

The fry between her fingers goes still in mid-air, then she turns toward me in the shadowy confines of the vehicle. “Know what I think?” she begins. “That it’s the parent’s job to take those steps. I’m sorry he never did. But you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Given that I’ve never talked much about my dad to anyone other than to gripe, she makes it easy. And so I tell her the other thing that’s been eating at me the last few days. “It’s almost harder finding out he cared and didn’t show it than when I thought he just didn’t give a damn. Does that make any sense?”

“Of course,” she says. “It means you have more to mourn now. I think you just have to make peace with the fact that your relationship wasn’t perfect.”

“Far from it,” I mutter.

“But there was still love, right? From him. From you. That’s what matters.”

Her words seem to reach down inside me, like something is squeezing my heart. “How did you get so wise?” I ask.

She simply shrugs, reaching for her cup in the drink holder. “Guess I’ve had a long time to analyze loss.”

Back when we were kids and her dad died, I simply had no idea what she was going through. “You’re the only person my age I know who’s lost a parent,” I tell her now. “I can’t imagine how you coped that young. You and he were close, right?”

She nods. “I coped because there was no alternative, that’s all. And this may sound silly, but…I’ve always felt like he’s still with me.”

“Not silly,” I answer softly. I’m not sure what I believe when it comes to an afterlife, but I guess I’ve heard enough people talk about feeling the presence of a lost loved one that I don’t question the validity of it.

“And…” She stops, and I can tell by her expression that she’s about confide something personal. “You might think this is crazy, but…my father used to see hearts in things—in clouds or leaves or stains – anything. And he would point them out to me. And now I see them, too—and it always feels like they’re from him.”

“Not crazy,” I whisper, touched that she trusted me enough to tell me.

She’s looking at me, and I’m looking at her, and we both seem to be done eating, so I follow the urge to lean over and kiss her. Even after burgers and fries, like the other night, she somehow tastes as sweet as the pies and cakes she makes, like maybe all the sugar and butter are just a part of her now.

Sensation skitters down through me, warming me up from the inside out. But the big console digs into my rib, and when I shift, my elbow almost ends up in the ketchup next to the leftover fries.

I pull back with a groan, then commence loading the ketchup and leftover food into the paper sack it came from as I announce, “This console is seriously in the way.”

After that, I move my seat back as far as it’ll go, cast an inviting gaze to the woman across the car from me, and use my index finger to silently say, Come here.

She appears shy and skeptical. “Is there room?”

I give her a little grin. “More than on the elephino, and we made that work just fine.”

“All right,” she whispers, looking more comfortable with the idea as she carefully makes the climb onto my lap, fitting there nicely between the steering wheel and my body, her back to the door.

There are so many things I could say to her right now, about the past, about the present, about how much I wish I’d found a way to connect with her all those years ago. But we’re both tired, for different reasons, and mostly, I just want to kiss her. So, lifting one hand to her cheek, that’s what I resume doing.

I’ve kissed plenty of girls in my life and something about this one is…different, better. I feel it in my gut, not to mention other key places. Maybe because I had to wait so long? But no matter the reason, our chemistry is off the charts.

And it’s more than chemistry. It’s…history. And that…I know her. I haven’t known the adult her long, but she’s the same sweet girl as always, only stronger and more self-reliant now, more accomplished. There’s not a fake or pretentious bone in her body. She’s just the real deal—she’s cute, quirky, sometimes-a-little-nervous Taylor Mulvaney and I wouldn’t change a thing about her.

And…I want more. More than kissing. As we shrug free of our coats and I run my hands over her body, I want to touch her everywhere. As I lower my mouth from her lips to her neck and she lets out the sexiest little sigh I’ve ever heard, I want to kiss her everywhere, too.

It would be so easy. To take this farther, to indulge my every desire with her.

Except for one thing.

This isn’t the time or the place. She deserves better than a backseat—or front seat—romp.

And sure, I could ask her to take me home with her tonight, but again, is this the time? When we’re both exhausted and she’s got an early morning? A younger me might be selfish enough to try, but the more mature Luke Montgomery knows a little patience will be worth it in the end.

Raising back up to face her, I lean over, letting our foreheads touch. The heat moving between us is almost palpable. Trying to calm it down, I find myself lifting one finger, wrapping one of those red ringlets around it, just quietly drinking her in, soaking up the nearness, the moment.

“This is nice,” she whispers. Her palm presses against my chest and I wonder if she feels my heart racing.

“It is,” I murmur against her hair.

We sit like that for a few minutes that are somehow at once serene and intense. Finally, I whisper, “If we stay like this much longer, I’m not gonna wanna let you go home without me tonight.”

She lifts her eyes to mine, our gazes locking. Temptation simmers in hers…mingled with what I know we both feel. The reality and maturity of wanting to make it right when it happens. “Me neither. So maybe…”

It’s so hard to do this, to stop this. But I care for her. And I want to give her everything she deserves. “Maybe we should both head home?” I rasp, my voice thick with the desire I’m struggling to push down. “Let you get some rest?”

She gives me a slow, solemn, almost sexy nod. “There’ll be other nights.”

Oh yeah. There definitely will be.