“Yeah. I wanted to do that once too.”
“What happened?”
My heart sinks into my stomach. Regret and sadness creep over me like a poison filling a valley.
“Life, I guess,” I say.
I look up at Holden. There’s a softness in his eyes that makes my throat tighten. Nervously, I remove a couple of crackers and offer the box to him. He takes it from me.
“I . . .” I’ve never really talked about this to anyone. Not even my brother and sister, although they could piece it all together if they tried hard enough. Maybe they have. I don’t know. But the idea of saying it out loud to Holden—a man whom I won’t have to see for much longer—feels freeing.
I take a deep breath.
“I’d always said I wanted to run this place,” I tell him. “From the time that I was a little girl, I wanted to be like my gramma. But I got older and felt stifled here.”
Holden nods slowly. He sets the stool back down on all four legs.
“I applied to Florida State and got accepted. I think Gramma thought it was a phase or something. She sat me down a couple of weeks before I was supposed to leave and said she’d sign this place over to me the next day. She said she was getting old and that she wanted to see me take over. That it would give her peace.” I look at the floor. “I left anyway.”
He reaches out and touches the top of my hand. His palm is warm and soft, and he takes it away too quickly.
“I got there and hated it,” I say around the lump in my throat. “But I was too proud to call home and tell Gramma that. And . . . she died before I could.”
“Shit.” He stands, and I think he might reach for me. I hold my breath. “I’m sorry, Sophie.”
I exhale. “It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. It won’t ever be fine. I left her. I made a bad decision after a terrible decision, mostly out of pride. I was so freaking stupid, and the regret I feel about that gnaws at me every day.
“You know what you need?” Holden asks.
“Yes,” I say quickly. “A knight in shining armor with five grand. Do you know what you need?”
He opens his mouth but snaps it shut. Slowly, his eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. A smile that doesn’t instill confidence in me spreads across his cheeks too. “Actually, I do. I need . . . a wife.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOLDEN
Sophie holds my gaze for a long second. “Well, good luck with that.”
“Yeah . . .”
My throat goes dry as my mind begins to take itself seriously. Too seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it starts to run certain scenarios in which we both could come out with what we need with nothing but a . . . wedding.
It occurs to me that this idea has been percolating in the back of my mind for a few days. Here and there, little blips of imagery would filter through my brain about what life might be like, being married to Sophie. I thought it was just a giant what-if game, like brains are known to play.
But maybe it’s not that. Maybe it was trying to tell me something.
To marry her.
I shake my head in the hope that the movement will jolt some sense into me. But when I stop, the same visions are running through my head.
She turns toward the sink and raises the window. Cool air blasts into the room. I wonder if it’s really that chilled or if my body temperature is just abnormally high as I think about . . . marrying Sophie Bates.
I gulp.
“That air feels good, doesn’t it?” she says.
Her back is to me. Her shoulders are rigid. I wonder if she’s thinking what I’m thinking, because there’s a definite stress in my back that’s making me stand tall too.
Shit.
I clear my throat. “Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“I have a crazy idea.”
She takes a deep breath. “Why does the sound of that terrify me in a very real way?”
“Well . . .” I plant my hands on the counter as I watch for any kind of tell as to what she’s thinking. “I think I might have found a way to solve both of our problems.”
She spins around and grabs the edge of the sink behind her. Her jaw is set. “You are out of your freaking mind if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
I hold a hand in front of me. “It could work. Think about it.”
The longer I think about it, the more I think it could. It would. And the deeper my belief in the possibilities of this admittedly crazy idea, the more energy flows through my veins.
I walk toward her slowly. Each step I take causes her chest to rise and fall quicker. Mine too.