Page 72 of Will Bark for Pizza (Bluebell Springs #1)

SIXTY-ONE

BECKETT

“Have you seen Kira?” Connie asked me, scanning the mostly empty bookstore. The doors had closed an hour ago, everyone making quick work of resetting the store so they could open for regular business tomorrow morning. Somehow in all the chaos, Kira had slipped away.

“I thought she left?”

“She sent Husker home with Connor and Opal half an hour ago,” Connie said. “But I thought she was still here.”

My gaze zeroed in on the door to the back room.

The one with the staircase to the upstairs apartment.

I locked it, of course. But she’d been using her new keys.

I hoped she was there, and not out at the lake.

I wanted to blindfold her and make the reveal extra special, but I’d take a spoiled surprise over jumping in a cold lake in the dark any day.

“I’ll go look for her.”

“Thank you, dear.” Connie patted my arm. “Beckett? ”

“Yeah?”

“I saw what you did for her.” She nodded her head upward. “Upstairs.”

I nodded, because I didn’t know what else to say.

“You’re a good man. I hope Kira realizes that.”

It warmed my heart to have her blessing. “She’s been through a lot.”

“Obviously.”

We both chuckled, but tension hung in the air anyway. Travis was sitting in a jail cell twenty miles down the road because he was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of his car while intoxicated. Luke arrested him before he could put his keys in the ignition and hurt anyone.

He was safer in jail than anywhere else.

Bastard.

All I could think was, Husker knew . The one time that dog forwent treats to get back to his mom, I should have known something was amiss.

“Good luck,” Connie said.

I slipped into the back, and up the stairs.

The door was locked, as I expected. I had a key, but I knocked first and waited.

Nothing.

I knocked again. “Kira? Are you in there?”

The deadbolt clicked open and the door pulled back slowly. “Hey, Beckett. You might as well come in.”

Her red-rimmed eyes were puffy, her makeup smeared. Her hair was pulled back into a low messy bun. The strong, fierce woman I watched stand up to her worthless ex appeared fragile and broken .

I closed the door behind me and reached to gather her into my arms.

Kira flinched and took a step back.

Fuck, I hated that.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets instead. “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said, her voice hoarse. “You’re amazing, Beckett.”

Double fuck. I recognized that tone, and it caused me to brace.

“I can’t believe you did all this for me,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the whole room.

The twinkle lights gave the studio apartment a soft, magical glow. But this moment was anything but soft or magical. I could feel her tension as strongly as if it were my own.

“I’m going to pay you back,” she said.

“No, you’re not.”

She flinched again, drawing attention to the harshness in my tone. But dammit, I was so fucking over her thinking I did things so she owed me.

“I’m not him , Kira,” I said firmly.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“This is too much.”

“It’s not half of what you deserve,” I shot back.

“I can’t do this, Beck. I’m sorry. I just . . . can’t.” The defeat in her cracked voice made my anger fuel hotter. If Travis were stupid enough to step foot in Bluebell Springs ever again, Luke would have to arrest me for what I’d do to him.

“You deserve to be happy,” I pressed, resisting the urge to reach for her. To touch her. To cup her face and insist she look me in the damn eyes. “You deserve everything you’ve worked for, and so much more. Don’t let that asshole ruin that.”

“That’s not what’s happening here,” she said, sounding less fragile and more determined.

Good. That fire I’d come to know still burned within her. She just had to believe it, too.

“You need space?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I can’t do this. I’m not cut out for this. It’s better for everyone if we just go back to how things were before I kissed you on that dock.”

“Better for who?”

“Your grandma and your sister were right. You’re a really good man, Beckett. And the last thing you need is me complicating your life any more than I already have. You deserve better.”

“Kira—”

“Please, Beck. Please, just go. Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is.”

Every impulse demanded I stay and fight for the woman I loved. The woman who pulled me in from the first moment I spotted her on that paddleboard in the middle of Ghost Lake with her quirky dog. But impulses had gotten me nowhere in the past.

I did cup Kira’s cheek then, gently. I waited until she met my gaze and said, “I’ll give you all the time and space you need, Kira. But make no mistake. I’m not going anywhere. When you’re ready, you know where to find me.”

I dropped a long kiss to her forehead and did the hardest fucking thing I’d ever done: I left.