Page 40 of Moonshine and Magnolias (Just Add Peaches #1)

When Brandi didn’t move, Sebastien nipped her phone out of her back pocket, avoiding her slapping hands. After he swiped the screen a couple of times, he handed it to Wendy. “What don’t you see?”

The emails were dated from the past three days. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

Sebastien poked Brandi with his elbow. “Tell her.”

“Whatever.” Her cousin rolled her eyes. “There’s no email from you telling me which flowers to avoid.”

That was her flimsy excuse for her monumental screw up? “Check your spam.” She handed back the phone. Rob put his hand in the center of her back. His physical presence gave her a comfort she didn’t know she had missed.

“I did. It’s not there.” Brandi turned to Sebastien. “Told you she wouldn’t believe me.”

“Maybe you accidentally deleted it.”

“Maybe you never sent it.”

Impossible. Wendy fished her own phone out of her pocket and brought up her mail. “Look, it’s right…. It’s… it should be here.” She clicked the number next to her draft folder. Inside, was the message about Pearl’s allergies she had meant to send to Brandi.

Two days ago. She had written the email and Rob had interrupted her. They had sat cozied up on her bed, chatting and laughing all morning and the email was never sent. “Oh, God. This was my fault.”

“Damn right it is,” Brandi muttered.

“This whole disaster was my fault. I don’t know what happened. I’m so sorry.”

She swallowed against the thickness of her throat. Was it worth it? Was the contentment she felt that day worth the risk of causing the bride a severe illness? She could have stopped everything that happened today if she hadn’t been distracted.

She took it all in. Rob’s hand lending her his gentle strength. The vindication in Brandi’s eyes. Her friends’ nervous glances as they waited for her reaction. Even Pearl with her red, puffy eyes, but so happy despite of everything that happened.

Yes. It was completely worth it all.

***

Wendy slid the phone next to the Hall’s ledger so their edges were perfectly parallel to the indent on the library’s coffee table. One word sang a refrain in her mind. One word that should have been easy to say. One stupid word.

Stay.

Wendy stared at the light perspiration covering her palms, trying to comprehend its meaning. Her hands never got sweaty. Not even during a game. She glanced at Rob, intent on his research at the Queen Anne desk in the library. He didn’t notice anything amiss.

Maybe she should throw a please in there somewhere. After all, that would be the polite thing to do. Two words shouldn’t be that hard. It was right. It felt good. It was something she wanted. She had only to ask.

She wiped her hands on one of the couch pillows, making a mental note to put it in the wash later.

Last night, she had left him snoring in her bed and snuck into her cousin’s room to tell her and make sure it was okay.

Saying it out loud to Brandi—and Brandi’s exuberant reaction—had solidified Wendy’s resolve.

But it wouldn’t happen if she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth.

The poor pillow was going to get soaked. She had faced situations across the boardroom far more detrimental than this and never needed a towel. She shook her head and opened the ledger.

Rob and Hal had been tucked away in the library since breakfast, conferring in quiet voices.

They were getting close to finding the origin and cure of his client’s curse.

Hal had left a while ago to talk to Anita, his source at the O’Hara County Historical Society, but not before commenting that they were behind schedule since Rob had been spending time helping around the Hall.

With the emphasis Hal had put on the word helping, it was clear he didn’t mean picking peaches or hosting camp tours.

Previously, the remarks on their private moments would have annoyed her. Today, she didn’t care one bit. She wanted everyone to know that she was with this man.

Rob ran a finger over the paper next to him as he skimmed the page, then returned his attention to his tablet.

Obviously he had to travel for work, but surely it didn’t matter where he lived.

Claremont, Georgia, was as good a place as any.

She licked her lips, but her tongue was sandpaper.

Perhaps all the moisture from her mouth had left and found its way to her hands.

Fiddlesticks. Now her face was sweating, too, accompanied by the rapid heartbeat. She forced the longing away to analyze why she forgot how to use her vocal chords. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Fear of crushing disappointment. Giving herself much too soon. Misinterpreting his actions.

Stay. Please.

His face turned toward her. His lips started to smile until they flattened and his eyebrows drew down. “Everything okay?”

“Right as rain.” She alternately loved and hated that he read her so well, better than anyone else ever had.

“What’s with the…?” He nodded his chin, his eyes focused on her hands.

She followed his gaze and found her fingers had grown a consciousness all their own, tapping a pencil against the table in a loud, rhythmic pattern. She placed it flat and moved her hand away, resisting the urge to swipe it against the pillow. “Sorry. Was it bothering you?”

“Not at all.” He joined her on the sofa, and put his arm around her, snuggling her into his body and his familiar woodsy scent. “But something’s bothering you.”

Just a leap into an emotional abyss. No big. “Working the books.” She forced out a grin. “We hired a guest to do some work around the Hall and the compensation messed up our accounting.”

“What a jerk. You should punish him.” He gave a playful tug to her ponytail. “Severely.”

She let herself melt into him. What would it be like, to have this kind of comfort and support, this companionship, every day?

Stay, damn it. Please.

Rob nudged the ledger. “She pitches, she balances accounts, she runs a tight ship. Is there anything Wendy Marsh can’t do?”

Demand what she wanted, apparently. “I can’t cook.”

“You burn everything because you’re so hot?”

She laughed despite the tension in her stomach. “Did that line ever work on anybody?”

He captured her mouth with his own and raked his fingers over her scalp. Each push forced the elastic in her hair away from her head and sent tingles to her breasts. He increased the pressure of his lips to coax her mouth open, then circled and stroked her tongue with his own.

The simple intimacy weakened her. The sensations were new and exciting and for once, she believed in them.

Rob’s thumbs swept against her forehead to her ears, then back to her temples where he rubbed slowly.

She let her hands roam over his back, enjoying the play of his flexing muscles under his shirt.

“Wendy, honey,” Eulalee said as she crossed the library threshold. “I’m fixin’ to … do absolutely nothing.”

Wendy gripped her loosened hair and slid away from Rob. Usually the clop of her aunt’s sturdy shoes announced her presence before her actual arrival, but this time she’d been as silent as rabbit in socks.

“Well, don’t stop on my account.” Eulalee flapped her hand in their direction as she scooped up the phone. “I have to call the air conditioner repair man. Carry on.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Rob murmured as her aunt left the room. He slid an arm around her shoulders and angled his head.

Wendy kissed her finger and placed it on Rob’s lips. “I really should get back to work. And so should you, or your client will be mad at you for wasting his time.”

“I don’t think my client will mind all that much.” Rob gave a soft chuckle and traced a circle on her back. “So my line didn’t work, then?”

His question didn’t register. “Why does she need to fix the air conditioner?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” He kissed her nose and returned to his tablet on the Queen Anne desk. “Because it’s broken?”

“I don’t think so.” Her perspiration was caused by emotional upheaval, not by too much heat. But Gerald Mitchell’s phone call from Belle’s on Sunday. Its air conditioner hadn’t been working. And in all the years Wendy had been at the Hall, she couldn’t remember ever taking a call from the brewery.

Weird.

She stared at where the phone had laid on the table. Really weird.

No, her mind was making connections that didn’t exist. She needed to focus on the extra income.

She settled her body back on the sofa and stared at the rows and columns of numbers. They didn’t match up now any more than they did when she had uncovered the discrepancies. If she couldn’t figure it out this time, she was calling an accountant.

Eulalee came back into the library and handed Wendy the phone. Her plaid pocketbook hung in the crook of her elbow. “I’m going to the market, sweetie. Need anything?”

“No, thanks,” Rob answered. “Everything I need is right here.”

“Oh, you.” Her aunt shooed her hand at him, but Wendy blinked. Was he talking about her?

“Was there something wrong with our air conditioner?” Wendy asked. “I hadn’t noticed anything.”

“No, just needed to schedule some regular maintenance. I’ll see you in an hour or so.” The older woman left the room with a wave.

Wendy stared at the number pad of the receiver. All it would take was one call to disprove the insane thoughts swirling through her mind.

“Too soon?” Rob asked. He made the question casual, almost insignificant, but his eyes burned with an intensity he couldn’t hide. She was everything he needed. An answering flame took over her heart.

“No.” The words came out deep and husky. “Not too soon. Not too soon at all.”

“Good.” The heat in his voice caressed her from across the room, and he turned back to his papers.

She gulped in a lungful of air. She had admitted feelings, and the walls hadn’t exploded. The peaches hadn’t rotted. The electricity hadn’t turn off.

And the phone remained in her hand.