Carter flopped down in his father’s big leather chair. If that cookbook were lost—if the secrets it contained were made public—it could bring down the Treeborne Foods empire.
He stood up, hastily shoved the money back into the safe, and shut the iron door. Right now there was only one thing he knew for sure in life
: he had to find Sophie Kincaid before his father found out the cookbook was missing.
Fifteen
“Hi,” Reede said from the doorway of the sandwich shop.
Sophie, her back to him, was going up and down a step stool as she put away the things she and Roan had bought. At the sound of Reede’s oh-so-familiar voice, she smiled, but then she remembered everything and it went away. Before she turned around, she had her face composed to be expressionless.
For all that she’d seen him without a mask, he’d been asleep then and she wasn’t prepared for the intensity of his eyes. They were deep blue under thick lashes. They would have been considered pretty if not for the depth of them. Hawks could learn a thing or two from him. Her first thought was that she understood why everyone in town was afraid of him. Her second thought was her memory of being in bed with him, his lips, his hands caressing her, touching her . . .
She turned away before he could read her thoughts. “We’re not open for business yet so there’s no food.”
“Could we talk?”
She took a breath and turned back to face him. “Sure. What do you have to say?”
“Will any apology work?”
“No,” she said honestly. “But tell me, did you win? You made a fool of the woman who poured beer over you, so does that make you the champion?”
Reede stared at her in shock. “Is that what you think of me? That I’d do something like that?”
Sophie glared at him. “Then why? What other reason did you have for concealing your identity from me?”
“I liked you,” he said softly.
“You liked that I cleaned your apartment and cooked for you.”
“No, I like that you care, that you listen, that you make me laugh, that you . . . ” He trailed off for a moment. “In that first call I didn’t know who you were and I confided things in you that I’ve never told anyone else. I’m sorry about my driving. I’ll never again take my eyes off the road. I . . . ” He reached into his trousers pocket and withdrew a new cell phone and put it on the counter. It was an unseasonably warm day, and he had on a T-shirt and jeans that hugged his body. “I owe you this.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said.
The hostility in her voice seemed to startle him, and for a moment she thought he was going to leave, but he didn’t. He looked around at the little restaurant. She hadn’t yet had time to do much with it.
Last night when she and Roan had returned from shopping, he’d insisted on going inside with her, even to walking her upstairs, and she soon saw why. While they were out, the little apartment had been transformed with gently used furniture, even some rugs. There was a pretty mahogany bed in the back, complete with blue and white sheets and lots of pillows.
“Guilt offerings,” Roan had said.
But whatever the reason, the kindness of the people of Edilean made Sophie smile.
When she looked back at Reede, he was staring at her.
“Do you want to open a restaurant?” he asked.
She wasn’t going to lie. “No, not really, but it’s just temporary. I’m staying here for the Christmas season and New Year’s.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “My life seems to just happen to me. I have work to do, so you need to leave.”
Reede stood where he was for a moment, then walked behind the counter to stand near her.
Sophie drew in her breath. It was so strange that this man was so familiar but at the same time she felt that she’d never seen him before. She’d thought his eyes were beautiful behind the mask, but seeing them now made her skin grow warm. “I don’t think . . . ” she began, but he stepped past her as though she hadn’t spoken.
“I’ll help you,” he said and motioned to the ladder.