Fall in Love Book Bundle: Small Town Romance Box Set

by Grover Swank, Denise

  My nose scrunched. “Noted.”

  “Their food is insanely good though,” she said quickly, offering their redemption before continuing. “Anyway, my mom wasn’t into the idea of running two businesses, so I came up with the idea of the combined shop. A month later, renovations began, and we spent every weekend for months out of town, learning everything about coffee and the coffee industry.” Pride lit her face as her gaze darted to the long counter that separated the coffee bar area. “I love the place as a whole, but this side will always be my baby.”

  “Well, it’s great,” I said, my voice thick as I gestured to the shop that had a soothing, industrial vibe. “You two have made an incredible place.”

  “I think so, too,” she said affectionately. “She focuses on the owner-type things now, whereas I like to actually work behind the bars, but she’s here as much as I am so you would’ve seen her by now if she hadn’t left.”

  A jumble of emotions surged through me, but I kept my outward appearance neutral. “Left?”

  “Yeah, she goes on this European trip every year with her closest friends—somewhere new each time.”

  Those emotions were choking me. Suffocating me. Drowning me.

  “That sounds amazing,” I managed to say.

  She smiled as her gaze trailed to my laptop. “So, what is it you do?”

  I move from place to place, never truly settling down.

  I run from relationships.

  I struggle to protect myself in a way you’ll never understand.

  But I knew that wasn’t what she was asking.

  I cleared my throat and started to speak, but someone else beat me to it.

  “You left.”

  I glanced up to find Sawyer walking toward us, and started when I realized those accusing two words had been directed at me. “Um . . .”

  Without missing a beat or even looking behind her, Emberly reached back, grabbed Sawyer’s shirt, and pulled him down into the chair with her. “Let’s put a stop to that conversation before it begins, yeah?”

  Sawyer leaned forward, resting his toned, tanned forearms on the table and lowered his voice. “Three days.”

  Emberly smacked the back of his head. “I said stop.”

  A bubble of tension formed around our table as Sawyer shifted his eyes toward her before letting them dart back to me, his jaw flexing as he studied me.

  What in the actual fuck.

  I glanced between the two before settling on the man and whispered, “So intense.”

  Emberly twisted in the chair so she could hiss at him, “And you wonder why. Jesus, Sawyer.” She tried shoving him from the chair, but he stayed firm.

  “Is there something you want to say?” I finally asked when it looked like he was barely able to contain it any longer.

  “Three days,” he repeated.

  “Jesus Christ,” Emberly murmured, standing to leave. “I can’t with you.”

  Once she walked away, I focused on taking the rest of my things out of my purse as I said, “These run-ins with you are really starting to border on—”

  “Breakfast.”

  The word creepy died on my tongue as confusion swam through me. I set my notebook on the table and finally met his stare again, surprised to see that there was pain behind his frustration.

  “All Savannah cooks for her guests is breakfast, and you were in that house for three days.”

  This is about food.

  Again.

  Despite being annoyed and slightly disturbed by these talks, I was more curious than ever about what could’ve happened to make him act this way.

  I leaned over the table, matching him. “Why is it you knew I hadn’t left that house?”

  “Other than Savannah laying into me for what I’d said to you, and then Beau doing the same every day you didn’t leave, claiming I was ruining guests’ experiences, this entire town has been waiting to see the new girl again and wondering why she’s here. I would know if you had.”

  “Right. Then I don’t understand why we’re having a conversation about food and my leaving Blossom—or lack thereof—since you should know I went to the store for food about a half-hour after you left the other morning,” I said expectantly. “With the way your town talks, there’s no way they didn’t talk about me running to the store in my comfiest clothes with wet hair and no makeup.”

  For the first time since I’d looked up to see him walking toward me, his frustration faded and he seemed unsure of himself.

  “Listen, I don’t know what it is that has you so obsessed with people’s eating habits, but you do not know me, you can’t get angry and demanding every time you see me. It’s—” A sharp breath forced from my lungs as I struggled for a more polite way to phrase my words, but there was none. “It’s weird. It’s beginning to get creepy, but I have a feeling I won’t be able to avoid you while I’m in this town because you keep popping up. And it’s really fucking dumb that I feel like I have to justify my non-eating to you, especially when it isn’t an issue and I can remember numerous times when I’ve been told by random people that I should probably skip a meal or two.”

  At that last part, his eyelids slowly closed and his head tilted as if he wished he hadn’t heard my words.

  I sat back and narrowed my eyes in equal parts frustration and confusion. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out Sawyer Dixon. If it weren’t for the people closest to him and the way they all clearly adored him, I would’ve run screaming for help when he’d entered Brewed.

  Hell, if it weren’t for the gossip that followed him, I probably would’ve run.

  Because the guy people spoke about, one of the most sought-after men in Amber and the one they all whispered couldn’t be tied down, didn’t match the person who angrily obsessed over when a stranger ate.

  His stunted laugh broke the silence that had fallen between us. “First time in my life I’ve been called creepy.”

  I lifted my brows as I took a sip of the mocha that had long since cooled. “You’re welcome.”

  Another laugh left him, this one fuller . . . but that pain I’d seen a glimpse of earlier was now so evident that it made my chest ache for this weird, frustratingly-gorgeous person I didn’t know.

  “There are some things we’re never meant to get over. For Sawyer, what he was saying to you, that’s it.” Emberly’s words replayed in my head as my mind went wild with what could have happened.

  I’d been too stunned to know what to think that first night.

  I’d teased him over it at Blossom to ease the awkwardness.

  But I’d known when Emberly spoke, expanding on the little piece Savannah had given me, that it was something big, so much bigger than I’d ever considered. With his pain so exposed, I wondered if I even had a clue.

  “The idea of someone not eating really is painful for you,” I said softly, and watched as his agony vanished into nothing. “What happened?”

  “Little intrusive for strangers, don’t you think?” Before I had the chance to fully absorb what he was saying, he was pushing from the chair and stalking out of the café.

  I watched him go, staring blankly, unable to grasp what had just happened between us—again.

  What was worse, I struggled to understand why I so badly wanted to run after him and beg him to talk to me.

  Even if he hadn’t been one of the oddest and most exasperating men I’d ever met, I didn’t chase men. I didn’t beg them to talk to me. I didn’t beg for anything from them at all. I’d never even had the urge to before then.

  But with each encounter that was stranger than the one before it, I had a sinking feeling that if I ever came face-to-face with the real Sawyer Dixon, he’d have me begging for all kinds of things.

  A touch.

  A taste.

  A night.

  To go easy on my heart . . .

  Chapter 9

  Sawyer

  Senior Year – Winter

  The smile that stole across my face when I caught a me
ss of wild, red hair weaving through the diner couldn’t be contained.

  It’d been a long two weeks without my girl.

  I blocked out whatever Emberly was excitedly explaining to the group, and pulled Leighton into the booth, wrapping her in my arms and kissing her the way I’d been thinking of every day since she’d left.

  “Fucking missed you,” I whispered against her lips before placing another soft kiss there.

  I felt her smile in return before she said, “That mouth.”

  “You didn’t miss me?” I teased.

  “You know I did.” She curled deeper into my embrace and released a sigh filled with exhaustion. “I made it through two weeks of them pretending we like each other or even know each other. Not that they didn’t still work most of the time.”

  I tipped her head up so I could search her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Oh well. Finished talking to them until next Christmas.”

  She did this every year . . . played it off as if it didn’t bother her that her parents were absent fifty weeks out of the year, even during the few hours a day they made it home from their jobs.

  I knew better.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated.

  “You made it better,” she said soft enough that her voice wouldn’t carry. “You always do.”

  “Get a room,” one of our friends called out just before a fry hit my face.

  I barely glanced in that direction as I launched the fry back to the other side of the booth, then grabbed a couple from my basket.

  After snagging one for myself, I held the other up for Leighton.

  Confusion filled me when she leaned away from the fry and shook her head. Tossing it back in the basket, I asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I just don’t want any.”

  Fries were Leighton’s weakness.

  They were what she wanted to celebrate anything.

  They were what she wanted when she was craving anything that wasn’t me.

  I was also pretty damn sure I’d never once in our lives seen her turn them down.

  “Did you already eat?” I asked, the question slow and hesitant.

  Her lips curved into a quick, forced grin as she gave me a nearly imperceptible nod. Before I could say anything else, she asked, “Hey, can we get out of here?”

  My stare darted to my uneaten food and our friends, the ones we’d planned on going out with after this. “I thought we—”

  “I really missed you,” she said in a tone that instantly had me on board.

  And then I was practically pushing her out of the booth, tossing a ten on the table, and calling out a dismissive bye to our friends as I towed Leighton to my truck.

  “Your parents?” I asked against her neck as I opened her door.

  Her groan of frustration rumbled against my lips. “Home.”

  I didn’t say anything else, just helped her into the passenger seat and hurried to get in the driver’s.

  I kept her tucked close to my side as I drove us to the secluded spot we’d been coming to since our first kiss years before.

  Once we’d made it there, everything had escalated so damn fast. We hadn’t even moved to the bed of my truck.

  Again . . . it had been a long two weeks without her.

  I’d pulled her back to me as she’d grabbed a condom out of the glove compartment, and then my mouth had been on hers as I’d reached for the button on her jeans.

  I’d barely gotten them down her thighs before she’d had my length in her hand and had been rolling the condom on me.

  My head had dropped back to the seat and a growl had climbed up my throat. “Fuck.”

  “That mouth,” she’d chastised as she straddled me, her jeans still up to her calves and restricting our movements.

  But then she was on me and nothing else mattered except her and that moment.

  It wasn’t until I was dropping her off late that night that I realized everything had been wrong.

  She hadn’t laughed as we’d left the diner in that excited and sexy way she usually did when we were dashing off to be together. She hadn’t let me undress her until nothing separated us, the way we normally did. And those soft curves of hers that I loved and had memorized over the years had felt so damn different in my hands.

  Chapter 10

  Sawyer

  I bit out a curse when my brother’s name displayed across my truck’s dashboard as I pulled up to the same spot I’d been coming to since Leighton and I had first started trying to hide from the town’s watchful stare.

  I should’ve known this was coming.

  He’d called me every Thursday for the past nine years since he abandoned our family and found a new life working on an offshore Texas oil rig.

  But the last thing I needed after having stormed out of Brewed and away from that girl was to talk to someone—especially one of my brothers.

  “Cayson,” I said in way of answering.

  “Whoa.” He drew out the word, almost making it sound like a question. “Bad time?”

  “No, I just—no.” I blew out a harsh breath and tapped my palm on the steering wheel once my truck was parked. “What’s going on? What’s new down there?”

  “Uh . . . apparently nothing nearly as interesting as up there,” he said, tone all mocking because he knew nothing ever happened here. “Tell me.”

  “Nothing, just this girl driving me insane.”

  At that, a loud laugh poured through the speakers of my truck. “No shit?”

  “Not really something I’ve been finding amusing.”

  “I am,” he countered. “From your tone, I know exactly what kind of insane you mean, so tell me what happened.”

  I thought through the encounters with the new girl, my head shaking as I did. “Nothing.”

  “Sawyer—”

  “Seriously, nothing. I still don’t even know her name.”

  A few seconds passed before he let out a low whistle. “Damn, man. That bad, huh?”

  I wanted to continue denying it, but I didn’t know how anymore. That girl had gotten under my skin with a look, and as much as I wanted her out of my life, I wanted her.

  I wanted her name.

  I wanted that goddamn giggle.

  I wanted the way everything seemed to amuse her and the secretive smiles that tugged at those lips that had been haunting me.

  “Cays . . . I don’t know how—I hate that she’s here. I hate that it took one look for me to want her in a way I can’t remember wanting—” I choked on the name and hung my head, reeling under my warring needs.

  “Leighton,” he finished for me. “She remind you of her? Is that why you want her?”

  “No . . . no, she doesn’t.” I swallowed back the overwhelming memories and rubbed at my neck as I sat back. “But there are things she says that bring up memories of Leighton, and it all kind of comes rushing back until I take it out on her.” A pathetic laugh crept up my throat when Cayson remained meaningfully silent.

  He didn’t need to say anything for me to know that I’d been an asshole.

  I’d known every time I opened my mouth around her.

  “I don’t think the time of year has helped that,” I admitted. “With this weekend and then what follows after.”

  Cayson made a confirming grunt, and I knew I wouldn’t get much more than that.

  He never acknowledged this time of year.

  “As long as you let Leighton remain the focus of your thoughts, she’s gonna control your life, Sawyer,” he finally said and hurried to continue before I could attempt to deny it. “As for this girl? Fuck, I don’t know what you’ve said, but I’d avoid the hell out of you if you took Leighton-related shit out on me. So, if she even lets you near her again, then talk to her. And maybe, I don’t know, try to get her name.”

  A self-deprecating laugh left me. “Yeah . . . yeah, maybe.” I settled deeper in the seat and changed direction in the conversation. “Tell me what’s new on the rig and with t
hat girl of yours.”

  * * *

  After wrapping up my weekly call with Cayson, I’d stayed out at the spot for nearly half an hour, but hadn’t been able to leave my truck.

  I’d been going over my encounters with the girl and what Cayson had said on repeat until I’d torn away from the spot, heading toward downtown with anxious energy coursing through me.

  All I had wanted was to get away from her earlier, but at that moment, I couldn’t get to her quick enough.

  After checking Brewed, I headed to Blossom and hurried inside when I found her SUV parked in the driveway.

  “What are you doing?” Beau demanded from where he was coming out of one of the halls, but I just side-stepped him when he tried to grab me and ran up to her room, quickly knocking once I reached the door.

  “The fuck is wrong with you?” Beau hissed, gripping my arm and pulling me away. “You’ve said enough. Leave.”

  I shoved at him with my free hand and growled, “Give me a damn minute and then I’ll go,” just as the door opened.

  I registered her surprise and worry as her stare darted between us, but didn’t let myself take her in the way I wanted to. I couldn’t.

  “You asked if I do this with everyone . . . I don’t,” I said firmly, then slanted a glare at Beau until he released me and stepped away. “I don’t know if no one else has given me a reason to, or if it’s because you triggered bad memories with what you said that first night, and now I can’t stop connecting those with you.” I gripped the frame tight and admitted, “And, yeah, it fucking hurts.”

  Her shoulders dropped and the corners of her eyes creased with concern.

  “I’ll stop.” My hand flexed and my jaw clenched. “I’ll try. Just—damn it . . .”

  “Sawyer, listen,” she began softly, placatingly. “When I first met you, that was not normal for me, okay? That isn’t something I usually do. Do I miss meals sometimes? Yes, if I’m incredibly absorbed in work. But I eat. These past three days, I have been eating . . . here.” She gestured to the room behind her. “Whatever happened to you, I’m sorry—clearly, it was horrible. But you can’t do this to me, and you can’t do this to you.”