Chapter 27
The drive back to Sullivan’s Glen took forty minutes, during which Zander had a stomach full of cheesy soup and a million questions in his head.
The most dominant was one he’d been asking himself for weeks: What the hell was going on with Penny?
He’d worry she was breaking things off early, but for the way she’d clung to him by the barn, saying the three words he wanted most from her.
Well, the three words he wanted second most. The others were too much to ask for when he’d be leaving town in three weeks.
Penny remained quiet as she pulled her truck into her drive, and as she sat on her front porch. When he sat beside her, she popped back up and paced in front of her cabin. Four steps in one direction, turn, four steps in the other.
“Penny, why—”
“You know something I’ve noticed about you, Zander?
” She said it pointedly but didn’t slow.
Four more steps, another turn. “You’re a pain in my ass.
You helped at the market when I said I didn’t need you to, even though I clearly did.
You convinced me to let you help with the festival when I was determined to do it on my own.
When I work through mealtimes, you show up at the bee yard with a sandwich and glare at me until I eat it.
” She stopped and stared him down. “And I know you keep resetting my alarm so I sleep later.”
He didn’t deny it. “You need more rest.”
“I’m awful at asking for help,” she said, spinning for another four steps away. “In case you haven’t noticed.”
Zander chuckled ruefully. “I’ve noticed.”
Penny slowed, looking into the trees past her cabin.
“When I was a kid, Mimi and my mom were so busy. They had this place to run and a kid to raise, and I just wanted to be helpful. I felt like—” She swallowed and pursed her lips.
“I think sometimes I thought it was my fault. Like, my mom got pregnant with me, and my father didn’t want to be a dad.
So he left, and then they were stuck again, picking up the pieces. Because I was part of the equation.”
Zander rose. “Penny—”
“They never said that.” She looked at him now, biting her lip. “I’m sure they never even thought it.”
Still, his heart clenched for the girl trying to make sense of it all. “But you did.”
She nodded. “I just sort of realized that today. I’ve been thinking about it, trying to figure out when I started trying so hard, when I became like this, and that’s part of it.
I wanted to prove to them I was worth it—worth not having anybody to help.
Prove to the whole town, maybe, that he was a fool to leave us.
And asking for help, admitting sometimes that I didn’t know what I was doing, that would ruin it. ”
Penny paced again, wearing a line into the short grass.
Energy sizzled just below her surface, like a racer at the starting block.
“But the thing was, my mom just let me. She’d talk about how I should take breaks, but she never offered to do any of the work for me.
And Mimi has needed her help for a while anyway, so—”
“So a lot was left to you.”
“Yeah. And then Henry.” Penny sighed. “Henry had this vision. This vision of what this place could be like, what we could do here. And I thought I had found someone to share it all with.” She laughed a little, but Zander heard the tightness in her throat, like it was his own.
“It was dumb, how easily I fell for that vision.”
“That isn’t dumb,” he argued, moving toward her. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to want that.”
He’d let his own dreams of building a life with someone go when he and Mal split.
Their divorce had been the right thing, but with a child to focus on and a life to keep in one piece, Zander hadn’t imagined he’d find another partner who would fit well into his untraditional family.
Until recently, he’d figured it was impossible.
“Even with Henry.” Penny came closer, until she was just a couple of feet away.
Sunshine glowed off the long braid over her shoulder.
“He had his own ideas, but he never helped me with mine. And I never asked. Because I suck at that. But with you, Zander.” Her lips parted as her long exhale mixed with the shuffle of leaves in the breeze.
“You don’t make me ask for help. You don’t wait till I’m desperate.
You don’t assume I’m fine. You just step up. Even when I get pissy about it.”
Zander reached out and closed two fingers around the end of her braid. “It’s not a hardship. Especially because you’re pretty sexy when you’re pissy.”
She laughed, but she was blinking away tears.
“Good. Because I think I’m about to get really pissy.
I want—” She cleared her throat and started again.
“I want to tell you something. I want to ask you for help.” A single tear tracked down her cheek.
“But I don’t know how. It’s like I don’t even know how to start. So I need you to, like, do your thing.”
“My thing?”
“Yeah. The thing you’re so good at, where you’re a pain in my ass and make me accept your help even when I’m really stubborn.”
“That’s my thing?”
“I mean, it’s one of them.”
“I have a lot of things, Penny.”
“Well, this is one of them!” She huffed. “I’m serious. Just—” She waved a hand at him. “Do it! Help me!”
He watched the rapid beat of Penny’s heart in her throat. “You’re asking me to be a pain in the ass?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” He dropped her braid and circled her slowly, thinking back to the times he’d broken through with her—helping at the market until she agreed to the beekeeping lesson, arguing about the festival in the sunlit bee yard.
Those moments all had something in common—they’d started with a fight. With Zander pushing Penny’s buttons.
But how could he pick a fight with Penny when he didn’t know just what he was helping with?
He played the day back: Penny had been fidgety, distracted, prone to long looks at the sky.
She’d been talking seriously with RJ and had looked almost scared when Zander appeared at her side.
She seemed ready for anything by the barn, but…
“You tensed up,” he said. “When I put my hand in your pocket.”
He’d panicked that he’d done something to hurt her—been too rough or forward, assumed too much. But Penny hadn’t hesitated until his fingers slid into her pocket and touched the corner of a piece of paper.
Zander stopped in front of her. “Show me what’s in your pocket.”
Her jaw tensed. “I don’t have—” She shook her head. “No.”
Suspicions confirmed, he stared her down. “I know there’s something there. I felt it when I was groping your ass against that barn. You tensed up when I touched it, so we stopped. If that piece of paper wasn’t important, I’d be fucking you in a hayloft right now.”
“Somebody’s cocky.”
“Come on, Penny. You know when I do that thing with my tongue behind your ear, you spread your legs for me.”
Her luscious lips pouted. “Not always. Sometimes I get on my knees for you—”
“Christ.” Zander dragged a hand across his face. Focus. “Stop distracting me with sexy stuff.”
“You brought it up—”
He extended his hand. “Give me the paper.”
“No.”
“You know I could take it. I’m bigger than you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I’m faster.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But my legs are longer. What do you think, should we test it?”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Zander grinned. “You’re right, that would be too easy. I’m going to get you to hand it right over.”
Her nostrils flared. “The hell you will.”
“Come on,” he pushed. “What could it be?” He tapped his chin. “Are you secretly married?”
“No!”
“Did you win the lottery?”
“I wish,” she scoffed.
“You’re heir to the throne of a small European monarchy?”
“Also no.”
Penny stepped backward, but he followed. “Maybe it’s your high school transcript, showing all those perfect little A’s you got when losers like me were barely getting by.”
Her eyes went hot, shimmering an angry blue. So lovely and fierce. Just like every time he’d called her perfect all summer. Like something stung each time he said it. Something that betrayed the label, something only she knew.
“Or maybe,” he continued, stepping close, “it’s a certificate of appreciation from the Sullivan’s Glen township council, acknowledging what a shining star you are in your community.” He arched a brow. “I think mine got lost in the mail.”
Penny crossed her arms over her chest. “They don’t even make those.”
“I bet they would, for you. Sullivan’s Glen’s golden girl, the one I was supposed to look up to.”
“I am not the—”
“The perfect Penny Becker.” He enunciated every word.
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? Everybody knows it’s true. My grandfather sure did. He spotted it when we were just kids. You were the perfect one—”
“Stop it.”
“But me?” He forced a laugh. “I was just the fuckup.”
“Shut up!” Her voice broke. “You are not a fuckup! And I’m not perfect, I’ve never been perfect!”
Penny’s chest heaved as her eyes went sharp and angry, a storm moving across calm seas. Zander wanted to hug the hell out of her, but she wanted this. She’d ask for his help in the only way she knew how.
So he shrugged like an asshole. “Prove it.”
“What?”
“Prove you’re not the perfect girl everyone says you are. The shiny, perfect Penny Becker everybody loves. Prove you’re not just what my papou always told me.”