Done (Harmony Haven #1)

Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

JESSE

Max was starting his first day at his new school, and I was supposed to be excited and at ease. But once it was time to actually let him go, I almost couldn’t. If it hadn’t been for him walking right in like a big boy, I would have taken him home and kept him wrapped up in my arms a little longer.

His contentment made me let go, though, and I cried the entire way home, only stopping for the few minutes I was at the red light near the fire station. Easton’s truck was there, and I wasn’t risking him looking out the bay and seeing me bawling inside my car.

Not that it mattered. He had taken my words to heart before I had left the station. I gave him every answer he could possibly want, and he let me go home in peace.

Still, I didn’t want him, or even Rory, seeing me so unhinged over something I was sure they’d never understand .

Once I was home, I tried to get back to work. I may not have made the candles by hand anymore, but there were tons of emails to answer and contracts to sign.

Before taking time off for the move, I had put feelers out about getting candles inside the pro shops at the sports stadiums in Atlanta. Eventually, I'd have to make a trip to the city to see the deal through, but in the meantime, I could spend time sorting ideas and color schemes.

It wasn’t that easy, though. Thoughts of Max kept making my mind stray. He was so tiny, so vulnerable. He was everything that mattered to me, and even though I had planned on him going to school after the move, I never imagined how lonely I would feel with him away.

My phone ringing was the only thing stopping me from grabbing my keys and jumping back in my car to get him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jesse. How are ya?”

“Good,” I smiled at Francesca’s familiar voice. She had been the first boutique owner that took a chance on Wax & Wonder, and in the past year had become a good friend. “Settling in okay.”

“I still cannot believe you just got up and moved to Harmony Haven.”

“My lease was up. It was re-sign, or move, and this place kinda fell into my lap. You knew I had been anxious to leave the city, especially after Clay snuck into my apartment, high as a kite, and scared me to death.”

“Yeah that would make anyone need a change. He had definitely lost his mind. It just feels like it happened so fast. I was on your website placing a new order for stock, and thought it was about time I gave you a call and checked in.”

“Well your timing is perfect. I need the distraction today. Max started his new school, and getting back to work is harder than I thought it’d be.”

“Well, I just placed a huge order, so maybe approving the new label ideas will keep you busy the rest of the afternoon.”

Francesca’s boutique sold more of my candles than anyone else in Atlanta. Lingerie and candles seemed to go hand in hand, and we added some spicy sayings to the labels that made them irresistible to romantic hearts.

“I cannot wait to see what that dirty mind of yours has come up with.”

“You know I keep it interesting,” she laughed. “Now tell me about Harmony Haven.”

“There isn’t much to tell. It's small and quiet. Although Max livened things up when he accidentally called the fire department the other night. They came while I was in the shower, and I walked out of my bathroom, completely naked, to find a strange man in fire gear reaching for Max. Scared me to death at first. Especially considering it's not the first time I’ve found a strange man in my house.”

“No kidding! Oh my God,” Francesca both gasped and laughed. “What are the chances of your ex popping in on you, scaring the shit out of you, and then you move to a new town and someone else shows up unexpectedly? You have to be kidding me.”

“I wish I were. I had been so scared he had broken into the house, that I didn’t bother covering myself. I think the towel stayed up, but it was all I could do to lunge for Max and hold him against me. Luckily, I realized quickly that he wasn’t Clay, he was a firefighter, and I figured out why he was there. Poor guy had no idea I was in the shower any more than I knew he was standing in my bedroom.”

“Max must have been thrilled,” she continued to laugh. “He loves his fire trucks.”

“You know he was,” I rolled my eyes, thinking of how proud of himself he’d be if he realized what he had actually done.

“So was the firefighter hot and single?”

My laughing immediately stopped with reminders of Easton’s wide eyes, and the way his chest heaved as he caught his breath that night. Then I pictured his messy hair, the way he looked hammering on that fence, and the way his biceps flexed under the shirt he wore at the station. Was he hot? Absolutely. Was he single? Apparently, yes.

Was I going to tell Francesca any of that?

No way.

“I have no idea,” I fibbed. “He was gone in a flash.”

Francesca hummed as if she didn’t believe me. My extended pause while I thought about Easton was a dead giveaway that there was more than I was telling her, but she took mercy on me and didn’t push.

“It's not far, right? Maybe an hour?”

“Not far at all. In fact, I’m probably gonna drive in for a meeting in a few weeks if all goes well with this deal for the Kings’ pro shop. Maybe we can have lunch.”

“That’s a plan,” she agreed. “Oh hey, someone just walked into the shop , gotta go.”

After a quick goodbye, I hung up, feeling better than I had before the call. It was just enough to help me get a little more work done before I started missing Max again.

“Knock! Knock!”

My head lifted from my computer and toward the front door. I had left the main door open, leaving just the screen door locked, and Ms. Ellison waved happily through the thin veil between us.

“Hi,” I jumped up, unlocking the latch and letting her in. “Good morning!”

“It's almost lunch time,” she laughed, making me double-check my clock.

“Whoa.” I must have been working longer than I thought.

Ms. Ellison didn’t sit, or even come very far into the room, like she usually did. Instead, she lifted a box out of a reusable grocery bag and handed it to me. “I just came to deliver this.”

“What is it?”

“No idea,” she shrugged, then began backing out of the house. “But I was told to let you open it alone. Oh, and you have to read the note first.”

“Who—?”

“Just someone that now owes me a favor,” she winked. “I’ll stop by for coffee tomorrow, but I need to get going and run a few more errands today.”

“But—”

“Bye!” She laughed as she made her way down my sidewalk and to the gate.

After latching the lock on the screen again, I turned to the box and flipped it around a few times. It was a white gift box, similar to something you would get during the holidays, with a robe inside. Or, based on the size of the box, a T-shirt. There was a pink ribbon wrapped around it and a small note taped to the front.

Pulling it off, I opened it swiftly, suddenly anxious to know who sent it, and why. There wasn’t a name, but the short sentence was all I needed to realize who had sent it.

You answered the wrong questions.

Pulling the ribbon off, I lifted the top of the box and saw, laying gently in tissue paper, was a thin, three-ring binder. It was white with black marker, handwritten across the front.

Questions I want to ask Jesse.

“Oh my,” I gasped. It was impossible not to smile. He had sent me an actual binder, and the image of him putting it together was making my cheeks hurt as I tried to resist the charm he clearly sent my way.

When I flipped the front open, there was a page with the same words that were on the front of the binder. Only they were typed up in a bold font, and centered to look like a title page. The next page had a typed up question, 12-pt in Times New Roman. The one after that had a different question, and it went on until there were five questions on five pages. He had even provided blank lines for me to write in my answers, and I laughed again, thinking of him hitting shift and the dash keys simultaneously to create the long lines.

When I got to the last page, instead of a question there was another note, type up and italicized.

More questions may follow since I doubt I will ever be done asking them. Please return to the box and give back to Ms. Ellison.

There was no way the binder actually existed when we were joking about it in his room. It was exactly that–a joke–and that meant he had to have put it together within the last few days.

My hand gently traced the handwritten words on the front of it while I thought about how I was going to respond. The smart thing to do would be to ignore it. No matter how cute and endearing his effort was, nothing changed about what I had said. Being a single mom was hard enough, why would I complicate it more by entertaining someone’s interest? Especially someone that would only be interested until he got what he wanted.

Then there was the other part of me. The one whose heart fluttered a little while picturing him with a three-hole punch at his dining room table, or wherever he did this. No one had ever gone to so much trouble to ask me a few simple questions.

Clicking the pen he had enclosed, I opened the binder up to the first question and saw how simple and innocent it was. The next question was just as easy and as I read through all five, I realized that his questions weren’t too personal, nor were they invasive. They were just common, easy to answer, questions and I started writing my responses with a smile.