Page 112 of The Promise Of Rain

My voice shook with rage and a sense of misplaced betrayal.“Provided you don’t say another word.And I suggest you go back to your regular bakery.”

“I can shop wherever I want,” she snapped.

“You can,” I agreed.“But Moose Lake is a small town.When Deacon finds out you’re coming here and asks me how you treated me, I won’t lie for you.”

She drew back and looked at me, her gaze assessing.

Lip curling, she opened her mouth to speak.

I leaned forward.“Not another word.”

Lips thinning, she spun on her heel and walked out the door.

Her bread left on the counter.

Shaking, I backed up, sat back down on my stool, and braced my hands on my thighs as our conversation played out repeatedly in my mind.

My mind churned.

One thing stood out in stark relief and left me cold.If Deacon wasn’t working on the farm, what was he doing?

There was so much I didn’t know about him and the past ten years, so much I didn’t want to know.

But I should know what he was thinking for the future.

Maybe it was time we started making plans and facing the obstacles that stood between us.

Like Adam.

Running into him at the movies, watching him leer at me in front of his wife and Deacon, as if they should understand why it was permissible, cut me deep.

But I wasn’t who they said I was.

I’d never been that woman.

However, I was a woman holding far too many secrets, one of them mine.Two, now, if I counted his mother’s visit to my bakery.

I looked down at my hands.They trembled in my lap.Everything in me wanted to forget, but I needed to tell him.

When his truck pulled up at three o’clock, I locked the door and ran out to meet him.

He smiled and leaned over for a kiss.“Hello, beautiful.”

“Hey,” I breathed, the tension in my shoulders falling away in his presence.

“You want to come to my place?”he asked.

I held up my overnight bag.“I like your place.”

“That’s good.”He smiled.“Maybe we’ll buy it.What do you think?”

I couldn’t stop the smile from stealing over my face.“It’s definitely something to think about.”

His house was my dream.

We moved around the kitchen together, a synchronized duet, putting dinner together before laying it out on the wide, country table.

He pulled the heavy chair to his right out for me to sit, then tucked me under.