Chapter 4 #2
It was a good reminder, though, of why – again, curses aside – she had never, and would never, make a credible move on Cooper.
They were just very different.
“Oh, I think this is fantastic,” she said, surveying the work so far, and smiling. “Everybody is going to want to ride the wagon.”
“Have you figured out your ghost story?”
“No. I’m still trying to think of one that’s spine-tingling without being nightmare-inducing. I don’t want to be responsible for a whole bunch of children not being able to sleep.”
“I don’t know that you could possibly tell a story that scary.”
“Ye of little faith!”
“I just mean that you yourself are not particularly intimidating, Eliana.”
She didn’t know why, but she felt a little bit dented by that. It would be nice if he thought she was at least a little bit scary. A little bit intimidating. In some capacity.
“I dunno. You’re too much of a good witch, I think.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I think,” she said, climbing up into the wagon, and walking through the clear center aisle to the haybale that she would be sitting on during the event, “that once you see me in all my glory, you may take that back.”
“I don’t know that I will.”
“You will,” she said, raising her hands and making claws.
He rolled his eyes and got up into the back of the wagon with her. And then he was standing right in front of her, tall and broad and gorgeous. And her heart leapt up into the center of her throat.
They were alone. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Cooper were alone. There had been these little pockets of time, and today there had been several of them. But right now, they were at the back of the shop, without a single person in sight.
It was a totally different situation than she ever normally found herself in with him, and it made her throat dry. Made her entire body feel like it was on fire.
And then suddenly something in his eyes changed. He was looking at her like he… Like he might want… She took a step backward, and then just about flung herself over the back of the wagon. He reached his arm out, wrapped it around her waist, and pulled her up against him.
Her heart was thundering hard, and… so was his.
She pressed her hand lightly to his chest, and she could feel it raging there.
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you for stopping me from… Dying.”
“I don’t think you would’ve died,” he said, but he didn’t let go of her.
Her stomach was pressed up against his. It was so intimate. She felt like she was on fire. She felt like she was going to die.
The Lovers…
Oh. No. No, no, no.
She reached into her pocket, hands shaking, and took out a couple of her crystals. Then she pressed them up against his chest, before curling her hand back into a fist and collecting them again, wiggling out of his hold and thrusting them awkwardly into his hand.
He looked at her like she was crazy.
“What?”
“Just… I have these crystals. I have them in my pocket. They’re for protection.
But I guess they used you to protect me today.
So that I didn’t fall, and I didn’t crack my head open in your barn, because that would really suck.
And I think you deserve the crystals, because you were the one who saved me. Probably because of the crystals.”
“What?” he said again.
She was babbling. Erratic and more than a little bit silly.
Because she couldn’t come up with anything more reasonable than that. Or a way to extricate herself from this moment.
She would’ve thought that maybe a lightning bolt would come in between them and provide a crack of a reminder that she wasn’t allowed to get this close to a man. But instead, it had been up to her and her own awkwardness to deal with it.
“I don’t need your crystals,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t… Thank you,” he said. She didn’t know what caused the redirect. But he put the crystals in his pocket and jumped down out of the wagon. “Hey, I figure I’ll deliver this to the back of the store a couple of days before the actual wagon ride. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
She blinked. The abrupt change of subject put her off balance a little bit. But then, she was already off balance. “Yeah. I think that sounds good.”
“I’m going to have to haul it down with a flatbed trailer, and then I’m going to have to pull the horses down when we’re actually doing the whole thing.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Right.”
He was saying very reasonable words, and she still felt physically… wound up.
It had been a whole weird few days. Where she had felt… so much of the deficit in her life, which was not what she usually chose to focus on.
And then there was Cooper.
But Cooper was an impossible crush now, as impossible as he’d ever been. And she needed to remember that.
“I’d better get going. The wagon looks great. Thank God we live in a place where no one will steal my spider.”
“You really like that spider.”
“I love him,” she said. “So maybe I should be worried someone will take him. Maybe I can’t love décor either!” She said it bright and chipper and forced out some laughter after. “Anyway, I have to go.”
She was abandoning the man in her own parking lot. It was so weird. She seemed weird. There was no way he was going to think she was cool or chill or remotely in her right mind.
But she couldn’t stay. Not when she was on fire. Not when she wanted him so badly.
Not when he didn’t want her.