Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
By Sunday morning, Eleanor had driven herself to distraction, and even keeping her hands busy was no longer helping.
It had been three days since she’d kissed Garrett, or maybe he’d kissed her.
She didn’t know which, not even after reliving the experience a thousand and one times.
But what she did know was that they had kissed and then he had sort of… run away?
It did not seem like a good sign, all things told.
“You probably rushed it,” she muttered to herself as she tried to install a flower box outside her new picture window. It was, predictably, not going well. If only Eleanor knew somebody who was good with these kinds of things!
Oh, wait. She did… or at least she had until she’d kissed him and scared him off.
“The two of you just agreed to be friends,” she said, looking at the way the flower box was supposed to hang, per the instructions, and the way it was absolutely not doing that in real life. “Now you’ve ruined it. He won’t want to be your friend anymore. And you have nobody but yourself to blame.”
“Are you talking to those flowers?”
The voice startled Eleanor so badly that she dropped the flower box directly on her foot.
“Oh, ow! Ow!” she exclaimed, hopping around a bit. Garrett quickly put an arm around her waist to help her balance.
“Shoot, sorry,” he apologized hastily. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The ache in her toes, which had been protected a bit by her sneakers, faded as quickly as it had come. She put her foot back down on the floor and was relieved when she didn’t feel any additional pain from setting weight on it.
“Don’t apologize,” she urged him. “I was just… muttering, and I got all caught up in it.”
“Well, still,” he said, his usual gruffness back as she disentangled herself from his supporting hold. “Next time, I’ll announce myself before I get quite so close.”
That next time sent a little flicker of hope through Eleanor.
“Deal,” she said, smiling shyly. Garrett returned the expression, although it was quickly replaced by a frown when he looked at the flower box.
“Actually,” he said, “next time, call me before you start. I find you delightful, Eleanor Ridley, but you are not handy.”
She would have suffered a far greater insult in exchange for the pleasure of being told that he found her delightful.
“You do?” she asked. “I was beginning to think I’d scared you off.”
He wiped a hand down his face in that gesture that so many men seemed to deploy when they needed to gather their feelings. She waited, albeit a bit impatiently, for him to speak.
“You definitely didn’t scare me off,” he said, which was a relief to hear. “But I might have slightly… scared myself off.”
“Okay,” she said slowly.
“I just… we’ve both had our hearts broken, although you’ve definitely handled it a lot better than I did,” he added ruefully, making her smile. “Your heartbreak made you brave, but I think mine made me a bit of a coward.”
“It’s not cowardly to take a step back to protect yourself,” she countered.
“And I think it’s incredible that you’re the kind of woman who thinks so. I mean, that’s the whole thing, actually, Eleanor. You’re incredible. And you kind of snuck up on me.”
Eleanor was probably blushing all the way up to her hairline. It was the redhead’s curse, after all.
“You snuck up on me, too,” she said. “And not just today.”
He smiled.
“Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that neither of us saw this coming.
” He paused, taking in a deep breath. “But if you’re up for it, I’d like to see where things go between us.
As I said, I’m a little out of practice when it comes to romance, to relationships.
Heck, I became the town grump. I’m famous for it.
But if we can go slow and just see…” He trailed off, apparently too nervous to say any more.
Eleanor, meanwhile, felt liable to explode with happiness. And wasn’t that the beautiful part of relationships? You got to bolster each other when you needed it, got to trade off being strong and vulnerable, got to share the highs and lows.
“I’d really like that,” she said. “I mean, I haven’t had a new relationship for twenty years either. So maybe we can find our way back together.”
“Yeah?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah,” she said. “Although, there’s one thing I can’t wait for. I need a kiss now, please.”
The eagerness with which he reached for her said he was all too happy to comply.
They pulled free of their embrace a bit sooner than Eleanor would have liked, but they had just agreed to take things slowly…
and she didn’t want to put on a display for the neighbors.
They were outside, after all. They were both flushed and a little dopey with happiness when they turned back to the flower box.
“You know,” Garrett commented with his usual dry tone, which Eleanor now recognized as obscuring a deep wellspring of emotion. “It’s good you said yes to seeing more of me. Look at this flower box, woman! It’s a mess. You clearly can’t survive without me.”
“I’m sure I would have figured it out, given a few hours to noodle with it,” Eleanor protested.
Garrett gave her a speaking look, then picked up the flower box, adjusted something, and had the box sitting perfectly in under five seconds.
“Or,” she amended, “I can let you help me and then we can spend those hours doing something more enjoyable.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “You still have walls to paint, after all.”
She laughed. “I was thinking more like a date, but now that you mention it…”
“I’m a hardware store owner,” he said. “Painting walls is a date. I’m going to be around for all your projects, just see if I’m not.”
“I won’t challenge you a bit,” she promised. Then a flicker of mischief passed through her gaze. “Although, given our track record, you might want to look out. I seem to have it in for you. Working for me might turn out to be one heck of a safety hazard.”
Garrett reached out an arm, wrapping it around her shoulders and tugging her close to his side. She sank happily into his warm embrace. It felt so natural, so perfect, for her own arm to wrap around his waist, for her head to rest against the curve of his shoulder.
“You know what?” he said, his voice rumbling against her where they were touching. “I think I’m going to take my chances.”