“MORNING, ADDY.” I raised my hand in a wave and sat down at the small round table situated at the front of the shop—the same table Cassi and I had shared a little over three weeks ago.
“Morning, Sam. I’ll be right with you, dear. I just have a few orders to fill first.”
“Take your time. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
“Don’t I know it.” She chuckled over her shoulder, her hands still busy at work, and I grinned, a huff of laughter floating from my mouth as I unfolded the daily paper and scanned through the news deemed worthy of making the front page. There wasn’t much to read about, but it wasn’t the least bit surprising. Nothing exciting ever happened in this small town.
After a few minutes of scanning the headlines and quickly losing interest, I lifted my head and stared out the window beside me. Sitting at the front of the shop wasn’t my preferred choice, at least, it hadn’t been in the past, but for the last few weeks, I’d subconsciously wandered to this same spot. The large glass pane provided a clear view of the street, and the continuous chiming of the entry bell was a distraction I’d never paid mind to, but one I now had to train myself to ignore. Still, I struggled to resist the pull my eyes had toward the sound of the small ring.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, every time the door opened, my gaze sought out the bodies passing through it, secretly hoping Cassi would be one of them.
Returning my attention to the newspaper, I waited patiently for Addy to bring my coffee and smiled as a steaming mug was set in front of me.
“Hazelnut decaf, right?”
The rich aroma drifted to my nose, and my head snapped up. My eyes collided with the soft brown ones staring down at me, a glimmer in them I’d never seen, and I nearly knocked the scalding drink right into my lap.
“Cassi, what—”
I jumped to my feet and cleared my throat, trying hard to string together a coherent sentence as my hands grabbed at napkins to clean up the liquid I clumsily sloshed all over the place. “What are you doing here?”
Chewing on that full bottom lip of hers, she looked away and then pointed at the empty seat opposite of mine. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“No. Please. It’s all yours.”
“Thank you.” She gifted me the most beautiful, breathtaking smile—revealing those sexy dimples on her cheeks—and moved to sit.
A momentary silence hovered between us, and it took the same amount of time for my mind to process she was actually there, sitting in front of me, not a mere figment of my imagination. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“I didn’t either,” she admitted, licking her lips and dropping her gaze to her hands. She spun the ring on her thumb around and around. “But then I kept thinking about our previous talk and how much I enjoyed it … enjoyed your company.” She lifted her head sheepishly, that glimmer in her eyes replaced with apprehension. “I was kind of hoping maybe you enjoyed it, too.”
“Yeah.” My chest fell on a sharp release of air, and the corner of my mouth tugged into a diffident smile. “Yeah, of course, I did.”
“Okay.” Her cheeks flamed red, and damn, if I didn’t want to discover what other ways I could make her blush. She shifted in her seat, her eyes flicking nervously over the interior of the café. “Forgive me, I'm not used to this.” She waved her hand, still not looking at me. “Socializing hasn’t exactly been on the top of my priority list.”
“It’s okay. I can’t say it’s been on mine either.” We sat quietly for a few more erratic beats, and I stared at her, waiting for her eyes to reconnect with mine. When they did, I asked, “Do you have any plans for today?”
“No. I haven’t given today much thought other than coming here and hoping I’d run into you.”
Hoping she’d run into me. How could I not smile at that statement?
“Would you like to get out of here?”
“Where do you want to go?”
I shrugged. Honestly, I didn’t care where we went. I just wanted to be anywhere besides this café. I wanted to spend time with her, get to know her, experience her. “I don’t know. It’s beautiful out, the sun’s shining. Seeing as Halloween is only a couple weeks away, we could go to Brown’s Orchard and pick some pumpkins.”
“Pumpkin picking.” She eyed me quizzically. “You want to go pumpkin picking?”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“No. It’s just ...” She shook her head. “Never mind. I’d love to go.”
“SO, WHAT DO you do, Sam?”
I glanced over at Cassi as we meandered through the patches of pumpkins littering the damp ground, careful not to trip over any unsuspecting vines crunching beneath my boots. “What do I do?”
“Yeah.” She stopped, squatting to her knees to inspect a pumpkin resting at her feet before glancing up at me from her position, her hand perched over her eyes to block out the brightness of the sun. “For work. You do work, don’t you?”
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I squinted at the sky and hesitated. My lips parted, but nothing came out. It wasn’t that I was ashamed of what I did, but sharing any part of my life—being so open—it wasn’t something I was used to doing. “I’m, uh … I’m an artist.”
“An artist.” That seemed to pique her interest. “What kind of artist?”
“Stained glass, mainly, but I dabble in a bunch of different media depending on the piece I’m creating. I’ve also worked with mosaics and cold glass sculpting.”
“A glass artist.” Deciding the pumpkin she was looking at wasn’t the one, she dropped it back onto its side and straightened herself, brushing the dirt from her hands. “That sounds like an interesting profession.”
We continued to plod through the narrow trails where people had trampled the dirt and soil before us, and the cool air nipping at our faces served as a reminder that autumn was now in full swing. “Yeah. It is. Being able to take a piece of glass and transform it into something else entirely is … well, it’s hard to describe, but I’ve been doing it for so long I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“What made you want to work with glass? Seems odd to think you woke up one day and decided that’s what you wanted to do.”
“My parents were both glass artists. It was how they met, actually, and when they fell in love and got married, they decided to open their own private studio. After my mother passed away, my father continued to run it until a few years ago. I learned from him and took over but had to close it for a while because of my health.”
“But you’re back to it now?”
“Not exactly.”
Cassi quirked her lips, waiting for me to elaborate, and I reluctantly obliged.
“It’s hard being in there most days. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, but since my surgery, I haven’t been able to concentrate on my work. When I create something, I need to have the end result pictured in my mind, and I haven’t been able to do that. I haven’t been able to visualize anything. I think I have a form of artist’s block.”
“Artist’s block?” She smirked. “So, sort of like writer’s block, huh?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, regardless of the fact that you might be struggling right now, it sounds as if you truly love what you do. I’m sure your mother would be very proud.”
My mother.
It was weird speaking to her about my mother.
For the majority of my life, it was as if the woman had never existed. Talking about her was too painful for my father, so it was easier to keep the memories locked away than the ghost of her alive. Realizing I hadn’t responded to Cassi, I said, “I do. Life’s too short to be stuck in a career you don’t absolutely love, right?”
“Right.”
“What about you?” I bumped my elbow against hers. “How does Cassi Porter spend her days?”
She wet her lips and pushed her words out on a sigh. “Cassi Porter spends her days behind the counter at the local food bank. It doesn’t pay much, but I enjoy it. The people I work with are friendly and understanding, and I like feeling as though I’m making a difference somehow.”
The local food bank. No. I didn’t imagine that paid much at all.
“I apologize if this is a bit straightforward, but if it doesn’t pay much, then how do you—”
“Get by?”
I gave her a small nod.
“Adam. He had a life insurance policy in place I had no idea existed.”
“Were you married?”
She shook her head, that sadness returning to her eyes, and smiled tightly. “No, but that was Adam: always thinking ahead, always being prepared, even when I wasn’t. He grew up in foster care. Family was a foreign concept to him before he met me and became a part of mine. We met in college. I was an undeclared freshman and he was a senior on the cusp of earning his business degree. He entered school knowing exactly what he wanted to do and what he wanted to achieve in life. I admired that about him. He always had it all together, and I think that’s what makes it so hard. He was my direction.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Speaking with Cassi was like walking on a balancing rope, one wrong step and you were falling from the high, frantically searching for new solid ground.
Stopping and turning toward her, I dipped my chin, looking in her eyes. My heart clenched at the glaze of tears coating their surface. It was an expression on her I was becoming accustomed to seeing but one that never got easier to look at.
“Cassi.” The words I needed to say became stuck in my throat, and I tried like hell to get them out. “I’m—I’m sorry.”
Her lower lip quivered, and she clamped her mouth shut, attempting to stop the emotion building up inside of her. “Please don’t.”
My heart pounded beneath my ribs, begging me to hold her, to comfort her. My fingers—still hidden within the warmth of my coat pockets—curled tighter as I fought against the overwhelming urge to drag her into my arms, but she wasn’t mine to hold.
Do you hear that, heart? She’s not mine to hold.
She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing heavily through her nose and blowing it out between pursed lips. “Can we not do this? Not here. Not right now while we’re supposed to be enjoying ourselves.”
“Okay.” I forced my gaze from her face and looked at the array of pumpkins scattering the ground. Spotting a nearly perfect one in the distance, I pointed over to it. “How about that one over there?”
Cassi smiled again, the tears in her eyes glimmering from the afternoon sunlight shining directly on her face. “Perfect.”
THRUSTING THE SHIFTER into park, I let the engine idle as we sat in front of Cassi’s house. After spending the entire day at the orchard, picking pumpkins and later walking the corn maze and drinking warm apple cider, we carefully loaded our findings into the bed of my truck and started the return trip home. Aside from our tiny hiccup while talking about Adam, our conversations had been lighthearted and flowed almost effortlessly. I’d even managed to bring a smile to her face a time or two, and I was discovering how much I loved seeing it play across her lips. Getting her to reveal those dimples on her cheeks proved to be a challenge, one I admittedly wanted to conquer over and over again.
Unbuckling her seatbelt, Cassi shifted to face me. A wisp of hair fell over her forehead, shielding her eyes, and I tightened my grip on the shifter to stop myself from reaching up and brushing it away—from smoothing my fingers over the tip of her nose or the apples of her cheeks, scarlet from the bitter wind. She swept the dark strands behind her ear, thankfully remedying the desire.
“Thank you for today. I had a lot of fun.”
“I did, too. It’s been a while since I’ve been out with anyone. I almost forgot what it’s like to enjoy someone’s company.” To not feel so alone, I almost added, but a pitiful laugh bubbled out in its place.
“Would you mind helping me carry my pumpkin to the porch?”
“No, of course, not.” Killing the engine and flinging open the door, I rounded the front of the truck and moved quickly over to the passenger side, pulling the handle on Cassi’s door and holding it open as she stepped out. Overhead, the sky was dusky, the setting sun coloring the horizon in vibrant splotches of blue and pink as I retrieved her pumpkin from the bed. With the large orange fruit cradled in my arms, we walked step for step toward her small front porch.
Our feet came to a stop on the worn-out welcome mat, and as Cassi took her keys from her purse and slid them into the lock, dread landed in the pit of my stomach.
Here we were, again.
Same feeling, different day.
Last time, my heart had demanded I keep her there, as if it belonged to her and her proximity was the only reason it continued to thrive within my chest. But today, the need was mine and mine alone. There was no justification other than to simply fuel my own selfish wants—to experience more of her smiles, her laughter, a chance to piece together her broken heart.
Swiveling on her heels, she lifted her head and presented me with one of her trained smiles, and God, I wanted to shake her, to tell her to stop pretending in front of me because there was no fooling a fooler.
Heartbreak recognized heartbreak.
She freed her pumpkin from my hands and set it on the porch, inspecting its placement, turning it a half degree to the right.
“Are you not going to carve that?”
Her gaze jumped to mine, and she chuckled. “Gosh, no. I think I’ll do it more justice by letting it sit there fully intact.”
I arched a brow, buying myself a few more precious moments of her time. “Seriously?”
“What?”
“You spend all afternoon searching for the perfect pumpkin, only to leave it sitting beside your front door uncarved.” I tsked. “Now that, Cassi, is injustice.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she scrunched her nose and spoke at a level that made it almost impossible for me to hear. “Aren’t we a bit old to be carving pumpkins?”
“A bit old?” I scoffed playfully, acting as though I’d been offended. “Hell no. I’m not old. Are you old?”
She dropped her head forward a little, laughing and giving it a small shake before pinning me with those eyes.
Goddamn, those eyes.
Their piercing stare punched straight through my ribs and grabbed a hold of my heart.
“Would you like to stay and help me carve it?”
I grinned like a lovesick teenager. “I thought you’d never ask.”
She moved to collect the pumpkin, but I beat her to it, hauling it into my arms as she pushed open her door and waved me inside.
Nerves swished in my stomach as I stepped into her house, my eyes drinking in the warm space. Dark, hardwood floors collided with gray, painted walls, and the bright white loveseat and white shag rug in the center of the living room reinforced the absence of children. A whitewashed brick fireplace occupied the wall opposite the couch, and a large flat-screen television hung above the mantel. The open floor plan led way to a galley-style kitchen located just beyond her sofa, featuring black granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances.
“You can set it on the counter.” She nodded toward the center island and slipped her coat off, hanging it on the coat rack beside the door. “Are you hungry? I have a frozen pepperoni pizza in the freezer I can toss in the oven while we carve this thing.”
As incredible as that sounded, I internally winced. My controlled diet didn’t allow for such indulgences; in fact, it stripped anything palatable from the menu, but the last thing I wanted to do was dive into a conversation about what I could and couldn’t eat. It’d only serve as a glaring reminder as to why I was even standing in her house, and I didn’t want to think of anything other than the reason I was there now. We were meant to be having a good time. Enjoying ourselves. Samuel Copeland could stomach a single slice of pepperoni pizza.
“Pizza sounds good,” I said, setting the pumpkin on the counter and unzipping my jacket. As I shrugged it from my shoulders and walked over to hang it up beside Cassi’s, I glanced at my shirt and adjusted the collar, ensuring no buttons had come undone.
“If you don’t like pizza, I can find us something else to eat.”
I lifted my head to look at her, feeling her questioning gaze on me from her position across the room. What gave her the impression I didn’t like pizza?
Shit.
Perhaps my internal wince hadn’t been so internal after all. “It’s not that. With the transplant, there are certain foods I need to avoid.”
“Oh God, of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t even think. I can find something else or we can—”
“No.” I shook my head, adamant. “The pizza is absolutely fine.”
“Sam.”
Ignoring her argumentative tone, I walked over to the fridge and pulled the frozen pizza from the freezer, willing her to take it from my hands. “Please. Make the pizza. One slice isn’t going to hurt.”
Her gaze lowered to my chest, where it lingered for a long moment, before hesitantly flicking up to my eyes. “Are you sure?”
A mixture of fear, concern, and wariness crossed her expression, and having her look at me that way, like I actually meant something to her and she was worried for my well-being, caused an unusual feeling of warmth to seep into my veins.
I gave her a confident smile. “Positive.”
“Okay.” Reluctantly taking the pizza from me, she preheated the oven and sifted through the cabinet drawers, holding up three different knives for my viewing. “Will any of these work to cut the pumpkin?”
“Yep. Perfect.”
“Good, because they are the only three I own.” She grinned at me, a sincere, full-of-life kind of grin that said “I’m a rebel,” and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Everything about this woman told me she was as laid-back and reserved as I was, and that alone was enough justification for being drawn to her.
“I’m beginning to wonder how you survive, Ms. Porter.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. Most days, she was barely hanging by a thread, that much was clear. A gust full of tension immediately swept in, stifling our easy-going rapport, and the smile on Cassi’s face slipped.
“One day at a time,” she murmured sadly.
Her response hit me like a fistful of daggers to the chest, and it took us both a few seconds to recover from the severity of their impact. It was then I realized how much hurt this woman still harbored. Grief was an emotion we all processed differently; I would be the first person to attest to that. I had my own world of murky shit I was wading through, but her smile—the one that made my heart beat faster and my pulse race—it was too beautiful not to exist.
The beeping of the oven brought me out of my thoughts, and the chance to say anything became lost as Cassi spun around, her back facing me while she unwrapped the pizza from its cellophane and placed it on the metal rack. Grabbing out a plastic grocery bag, a flat baking sheet, a bowl, and a large container of salt, she erased the distance separating us and sat on the stool beside mine.
She was so close, our thighs nearly touching, as the sweet scent of her perfume wafted in the air, awakening every dormant sense. I watched in fascination as she carefully carved the knife around the stem of the pumpkin, and while her attention was focused on the work her hands were performing, mine was focused on her. My gaze drifted lazily over her face, framed by a river of silky brown strands, and across her fair complexion. The fullness of her pink lips and the way she would occasionally dart her tongue out, licking at the top and then curling it around the bottom sent my mind to places it had no right to be.
Redirecting my attention from her mouth, I followed the path of her jaw, descending the gentle curves of her neck.
She was stunning. Absolutely stunning.
Her delicate shoulders were hidden beneath a red blouse, the V-neck revealing the sharp lines of her collarbone and cleavage that led to a pair of perfectly round breasts. My fingers twitched with the need to trace those lines, to feel her skin—discover the glorious weight of her tits in my palms. Lust slammed into me at the thought, and I felt myself harden in my jeans. It was wrong, looking at her and wanting her the way that I did. Internally, I kicked myself for it, again and again, but it didn’t help, because it certainly hadn’t been intentional. Not in any way, shape, or form.
My reaction was purely primal: natural.
Cassi was all woman, a beautiful fucking woman, and I was a man suffering from the debilitating effects of seventeen months of celibacy. The emotions, however—the way my heart yearned to be next to her, the way it thumped harshly in my chest as if she were its everything—were completely unexplainable.
“Do I have something on my face I don’t know about?”
Wait. What? Shit.
Embarrassment reddened my cheeks as I frantically searched for an excuse. “No. I—” I quickly peeled my gaze off her, averting my attention to her hands that were now scooping the seeds from the inside of the pumpkin. “I’m sorry.”
Cassi didn’t say anything, and I wasn’t sure what was more unsettling: her eerie silence or that she caught me blatantly staring. But how could I not?
She had me captivated.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s just been a while since I’ve had anyone look at me like that.”
Tucking my arms against my sides, I rubbed at the back of my neck as the uncomfortable heat on my face spread south. “And how was I looking at you exactly?”
She turned her head gingerly in my direction, the hollow of her throat dipping on a hard swallow as she met my eyes. There was a long pause followed by a quiet whisper. “As if I’m giving your heart a reason to beat.”
My lips parted in surprise, and as if she hadn’t crossed a line we’d both been tiptoeing along this entire time, she immediately looked away, returning to her task of cleaning the inside of the pumpkin.
Holy fuck.
“Do you mind washing the seeds clean for me? That way we can roast them as soon as the pizza is done.”
Desperate for the distance, I ran my hands along my jean-clad thighs and practically jumped from my seat. “Yeah, of course.” I grabbed the bowl from the counter and nearly sprinted over to the double, stainless-steel sink, turning on the cold water and rinsing the pulp from the seeds as I tried to recover from my own reaction.
Damn it.
What was it about this woman that had me wanting her the way that I did? I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to think of something other than her and my body’s response to her.
“Son of a—”
The sharp sound of metal clattering against the countertop, along with Cassi’s sudden hiss, had me twisting at the waist.
Blood trickled down her arm, staining her skin crimson as she cradled her wrist to stop the flow of its path.
“Jesus.” Yanking two paper towels from the roll and running one of them under warm water, I hurried over to her. I took her hand in mine and held it up between us, applying pressure to the wound on her palm. “Are you okay?”
Her head fell between her shoulders as she pinned me with those big brown eyes, that now—under the low recessed light hanging above our heads—I saw glimmered with flecks of amber and gold.
My heart thumped faster.
Her pulse quickened beneath my grasp, its chaotic rhythm igniting a fire in my veins that heated every cell, and as much as I knew I should look away, break the enigmatic hold we had on each other, I couldn’t.
Not even if I tried.
We remained as we were, gazes locked and hands held, lost in a cloud of muddled confusion and apparent desire, and it was as if a lifetime of conversation passed between our unmoving lips and unblinking eyes.
You are, Cass, I wanted to tell her, thinking about our conversation that occurred only moments ago. You’re the reason his heart beats.
Cassi looked away first, the disconcerted sound of her voice cutting through our silence, causing whatever was floating between us to quickly evaporate. “This is why I don’t carve pumpkins.”
She surrendered her gaze to the floor, and my lungs finally caught hold of the air they’d spent the last several seconds fighting to retrieve. I swallowed the lump of words lodged in my throat and returned to tending to her wound. Pulling back the blood-soaked paper towel, I inspected the gash on her palm—making sure she wasn’t in need of stitches—and deciding the cut wasn’t too deep, I reluctantly let her go. I sat on the stool, my heart still recovering from the shock of panic that sent it thundering in my chest at the possibility of her being hurt.
“God.” She shook her head and let out a despondent sigh. “I’m such a mess.”
Frowning, I pressed two fingers beneath her chin, guiding her face toward mine. “You’re not.” My thumb ran along the curve of her lower lip, my brows narrowing as I followed its path with my gaze. “You're just a little broken, Cass, and that’s its own kind of beautiful.”