I was working at the retreat shop today, but I hadn’t been able to really get excited about it or even focus on it as much as I should have. It was Thursday morning, which meant it’d been more than a full twenty-four hours since I’d last spoken to Blake.

Not that we’d done much talking if I was honest about it. Most of it had been the sort of rambling nonsense that happened when a person’s brain was paying more attention to sex than speaking. At the end, however, I’d asked him to give me a head’s up the next time he decided to go all caveman on me and drag me into a back room and bend me over a table. The sex had been amazing, and I didn’t dislike spontaneity, but I meant what I’d said to him about maybe using a bed.

Plus, there was the whole ‘sex at work’ thing. I didn’t necessarily mind a break like that, and it wasn’t like I’d had customers at the time, but it didn’t mean that’d be appropriate behavior to repeat. Besides, all either of us needed was for someone to see him coming out of the shop when the closed sign had been up a while. I wasn’t reclusive like he was, but I did value my privacy when it came to matters like this.

“Is this all the inventory you have, dear?” Blair asked as she made her way through the shop.

This stuff with Blake had my head all messed up. “No, I just brought some of my more popular things to see how they’d fill in the shelves. I’ll bring more stuff in tomorrow. Besides I don’t want to stock things up here if they don’t sell.”

“Why wouldn’t they sell?” Kevin asked as he picked up a tin of my most popular tea blend. “You said things have been going well.”

“They have,” I said, pushing down my impatience. I’d already explained this to them, but they’d clearly been caught up in their own project. “Most of my sales are online, and I always take that into account when I’m stocking the store in town.”

I put another box on the counter and started unpacking some of the new tools I’d gotten. I hadn’t wanted to risk taking things back and forth between the two stores because I knew I’d end up forgetting something at some point, most likely when I really needed it.

“Those are lovely,” Blair said as she came over to me. She picked up my new mortar bowl and pestle. “Is this marble?”

I nodded. “I know you like marble, so I figured it’d go well with the whole feel of the place.”

“I do,” she said with a smile. “It’s such a cool, tranquil stone. It will encourage the atmosphere we want here. Obviously, it doesn’t fit the rustic aura here, but we’ve used it in every place it’s appropriate.”

“Have you finished all of the remodeling?” I put things away as I talked, preferring to keep my hands busy.

“We still have a few things to finish on one of the cabins,” Kevin said. “It had some damage to its roof that took a little more time than we thought.”

“Are you waiting until it’s done to officially open?” I knew better than to ask outright if they had a specific opening date. My parents tended to be the sort of people who scheduled things by feel rather than anything else, which meant they did very little planning ahead.

“We put out the word to people in some of Kevin’s old social circles and decided that we would let fate determine when we officially opened.”

Blair’s answer was pretty much what I’d thought she’d say.

“And it just so happens that we have a set of brothers coming in this weekend. A prestigious family who we’re confident will spread the word,” Kevin said. He put his arm around Blair and kissed the top of her head. “You’ll be able to be here, right, Brea? We don’t know if they’re the sort of people who’d enjoy the bounties of nature, but we want them to be able to see everything we have to offer.”

I scanned my mental calendar. “I can do that.”

I’d need to juggle a few things, but I could make it work. Besides, I wanted to make sure my parents knew they had my support one hundred percent. When they got bored and went on to the next thing, at least we’d all have spent quality time together. If my business in town didn’t suffer, I was willing to be flexible about working here.

“What did you say the family did?” Blair asked, looking up at Kevin.

“Business acquisitions and liquidations,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

Once he started talking business, I tuned him out. I loved my father dearly, but he tended to drone on a bit when he explained things. Blair was certain he’d been a professor in a past life.

I set a box of willow bark on the counter, but just as I was ready to turn away, a thought struck me. I usually used tins for my teas, but on occasion, I did sell things in wooden boxes. They’d always been simple but well-made containers I purchased in bulk, but as I ran my thumb over the front of the lid, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a better way of doing business.

Making a table and chairs wasn’t the same as making a box, but I’d seen how delicate the scrollwork was on the furniture. I had no doubt that Blake could do it. I just wasn’t sure if he’d be comfortable with me asking. I wouldn’t expect it for free, of course, or even a discount, but I knew some people were reluctant to mix business with pleasure.

My stomach twisted, and I felt the need to press my thighs together. We’d definitely enjoyed the pleasure.

I only wished I knew what it meant.

The way things kept happening between us was strange. We’d both been aware of each other for a while, then had a rather rude introduction. A date, during which we’d had sex on his kitchen counter. Then nothing for two days until he showed up at my store and we’d gone at it like some horny high schoolers. And I hadn’t heard from him since.

Even though it wasn’t my usual way of doing things, I could’ve written this off as a fling. A one-night stand and then a quickie to get each other out of our respective systems. Except something in my gut told me that it was more.

I put the willow bark on one of the shelves and adjusted the sign next to it. I despised price tags and preferred hand-written, hand-decorated signs that gave the name and price of each item. Granted, it took a lot of time, but I’d always found something soothing about doing each one.

I didn’t understand why it would be more with Blake. Not only was this not how I usually conducted my romantic life, but he wasn’t even my type. I’d always prided myself on not having a physical type, but when it came to personality and other of those sorts of characteristics, I had a specific type of man in whom I’d always been interested.

Intelligent, though not necessarily book smart. Articulate, more in the ability to communicate than an overabundance of words. Compassionate, but not a pushover. Strong, but not overbearing. An ability to smile and laugh while also knowing there was a time to be serious as well.

Some people might’ve called me picky, but that wasn’t really a list of standards as much as it was the actual qualities of the men I’d dated in the past. All of them should have been the men of my dreams, but there’d been enough missing from each relationship that it had ended.

Blake might’ve had some of those qualities, but he was as far from like the men from my past as I was sure I was from the women he’d dated before. My boyfriends had been…delicate wasn’t the right word, but they’d been the sort of men who never would have looked at home on a ranch. Blake was rugged and masculine in what should have felt like a stereotypical way, but I didn’t get the impression from him that he thought of himself as being some sort of macho manly man. This was just who he was.

“Brea?”

I blinked, snapping back from where my mind had taken me. Blair was giving me a curious look that told me she’d said my name more than once.

“Everything okay?”

“Fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “Just thinking.”

I didn’t tell her what – who – I’d been thinking about, and she didn’t ask. If I would’ve thought I could get some advice from her, I would’ve shared, but I’d learned a long time ago that my parents weren’t really the people I wanted to talk to about relationships. I was all for consenting adults doing whatever it was that worked for them, but I didn’t want what they had.

I wanted the white picket fence and a husband and kids. A dog. That sort of thing. And I couldn’t help but wonder if Blake wanted any of that too.