Chapter Seventeen

Annabel

“All right,” Beau says, standing against the open passenger door with his hand out. “How’d you find this place?”

I step out of the car and let him shut the door behind me. “Doesn’t everyone know New Hope?” It’s full-on evening, but the air is still warm. I tilt my face up and let the dwindling rays of sun have their way with my skin. When I open my eyes, Beau is grinning at me. As much of a grin as he’ll do, which is more of a half smile. “I take it you don’t know New Hope.”

“First time ever setting foot in the place.”

“I love a good first time.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he says as he leans down to kiss my temple. It’s so gentle, so couplelike, that my heart almost seizes up right then. “Do you have a plan for while we’re here? It’s another two hours back to the city, and I don’t want—”

“I know. You don’t want to get back too late.” There’s work waiting for both of us back in the city. I finished up quickly with Bethany, but lucky for me, a lot of the actors and actresses in the production like to schedule fittings at odd hours.

I thread my arm through his and tug him in the general direction of the main drag. To be technical, we’re already on Main Street. I had him park at one end so we’d have a reason to stroll. Yes, I’d rather be straddling him in the back of his car, but I’m not in the mood for that kind of anxiety. I might be a get-up-and-go kind of girl, but the idea of attracting police attention in a town as small as this one doesn’t thrill me. Plus, there are probably more than a few people here who remember me.

Beau’s smile grows bigger the farther we walk down Main Street.

“Do you like the looks of this place?”

“It’s old,” he says simply.

“The word you’re looking for is historic.”

He laughs. “It’s not as historic as Britain, but it has that same kind of charm, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. Very charming. Very unlike Manhattan.”

“That’s why you wanted to come here?”

“That’s why I wanted you to come here.” I can’t quite put into words why it was so important to get out of the city. It’s the comfortable thing for me to do in the first place. I love the sensation of being on the move. Thanks, Mom. But today it was more about Beau. It was more about wanting to see the tension leave his shoulders.

He takes a big breath. He’s already starting to relax. I can feel it under my palms, wrapped around his arm. “I’m still waiting on an answer.”

“To which question?”

“How do you know about New Hope, Pennsylvania?” He looks down at me, eyes shining like he’s enjoying working out this puzzle. “I’ve legitimately never heard of this place.”

“I’m sure they don’t talk about small towns in Bucks County at the big corporation you’ve all got going.”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure what everyone talks about all day, so there’s always a possibility.”

So precise. So accurate.

“If you must know, my car broke down.” I sigh, remembering that car. It was a 1992 Subaru Legacy. “It was my first car, and my graduation money was all I had, so I bought it from a dealer outside Chicago.” God, that thing was a death trap.

“You didn’t want to stay?”

“Not once my mom flew out. All my friends were going to college, and I figured I’d go, too.”

Beau cracks a smile, but he doesn’t laugh. “So you drove off and went to college?”

“That was the plan.” I had been naive at the time, to say the least. “I hadn’t exactly . . . applied anywhere. I thought it would be more like moving. That was always easy for my mom. Pick up and go, and the pieces somehow all come together. I was a traveling virgin, okay?”

“I’m not laughing,” he says, but I can hear it in his voice.

“Anyway,” I press on. “It was a cheap car, and I didn’t quite make it all the way to the city. I made it here. That part went fine. I got a job at a pizza place, enrolled at the community college the next semester . . .” It had felt good to be in a place like this. Good right up until it got to be stifling, and then I headed out. “It was nice.”

“It seems very . . . relaxing.”

“That’s a lovely way to put it,” I say with a laugh. “You can admit it, Beau. New Hope might be relaxing, but I’m not.”

He stops in the middle of the sidewalk and gazes into my eyes. “No, you’re not,” he says, like he’s still mulling it over. “I don’t know how you live this life, going from one place to the next, never settling down.”

Heat flushes all the way through me. Beau transfers my hand from his arm to his hand and then curls his fingers through mine and lifts them to his lips. God, he is such a gentleman. Can anyone blame me for having a searing crush on him? “Never say never,” I blurt out.

He raises his eyebrows. “The more you tell me, the more you’ll always be on the move.”

I can’t help myself. “I’d like to be moving on you.”

He laughs, his face transformed, and then his hand is on the back of my head, pulling me in. It’s a deep kiss, totally not self-conscious, and nobody’s phone rings the entire time.

It lasts right up until someone on the other side of the street lets out a whoop. I break away from Beau with a laugh, then wrap my arm around his waist. “If we stay here too long, these people are going to expect a show.”

“I’ll give them a show,” he says, but he comes along with me to dinner, his arm around me all the way.