Kisses In The Sand: Blame It On The Kiss Part 4

"Thanks."

"On one condition."

The small two-story building with white trim around the windows and a sloped shingle roof came into view. Honor rubbed behind her ear. She ground her teeth together. "What condition?"

"Tell me what else is on the list."

She stopped walking and without thinking jammed her finger into his chest. "You're blackmailing me to stay quiet?"

He stepped back and raised his arms, bent at the elbows, palms flat. Surrender her a.s.s. And if he thought his cute little smile and cleft in his chin along with those dreamy, too-sharp eyes would have some affect on her, he was wrong. She wouldn't tell him another thing about Payton's wishes.

"I'd rather call it friendly persuasion," he said.

"We aren't really friends and you're about as congenial as a hippopotamus with a tooth ache." She strode away. "And forget what I said about your shirt," she called over her shoulder. Childish. But whatever.

"I'm curious, is all." He fell right back in step beside her. His interest in Payton cut to the quick, reminding her where his heart had once lay. Maybe still lay.

"When I'm interested in something I don't include stipulations. I'll be sure to mention this tactic of yours to my brother."

He flinched. "Point taken, but I thought no one else knew about the list."

She inwardly fumed because dammit, he was right. "Don't you have somewhere else to be this morning?"

He looked at the silver manly-man watch on his wrist. "Not for another half hour. And thanks to you I had a fritter and coffee, so I'm good."

She slid a glance his way. His boyish simper made her forget herself, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from giggling. From wet clothes last night to dirty ones this morning, for a serious guy, he didn't let flubs bother him.

His good humor was insanely attractive.

Honor had a feeling no matter what she said he'd find a way to stick around, so she kept quiet. She waved to Jules rounding the corner of her flower shop.

"Hi, Honor," Jules said, a big white bucket filled with bright colored flowers in her hands.

"Need help with that?" Bryce asked, his body leaning in Jules' direction.

"Nope. Thanks, though." She disappeared inside an open gla.s.s door.

Honor knelt and retrieved the key from the plastic rock in the flowerbed under the wooden stairs. Jules had been nice enough to plant some roses and maintain a small garden for her since Honor killed even fake plants.

"Honor?" Bryce said.

Key in hand, she turned. He stood really close. Too close. Her knees reacted by wobbling a little. She held herself steady with a hand to the white staircase. "Yes?"

"Tell me you don't keep the key to your store in a rock."

"Where else would I keep it?" She scooted around him and started up the stairs.

He followed. "On your person. In your purse. Somewhere it's safe?"

"I hate carrying a purse and if I put the key in my pocket, I'd lose it." She wore a striped black and white cotton-blend dress today that fell to her ankles and hugged her body in the most comfortable way. Two small pockets sat on each hip, one held a ten for the breakfast she'd been treated to, the other held lip balm. Not the end of the world if she lost either one.

"What about a car key?"

"It's under the front seat." She tossed a quick smile over her shoulder. "There are no key thieves in White Strand. The only crime that happens here is during bingo night when someone uses a black Sharpie to change a number."

She stopped at the top of the stairs and put the key in the lock. "Umm..." She turned and looked down at Bryce. He stood two steps from the top of the landing. "Thanks for the company but I'll see you later."

"I don't get to come in?"

"It's still a work in progress."

"Would it make a difference if I told you I'd really like to see what you and Payton wanted to create?" A swallow worked its way down his throat. She hadn't considered how hard it might be for him, too, to have lost Payton. Twice actually. Without any sort of conclusion but silence.

Her shoulders sagged. He deserved some breathing room and consideration. "I sometimes forget she's not here. Is that weird?"

"No." He took a step up. "I think that's perfectly normal. I remember when my grandfather pa.s.sed away and my dad telling me he still expected him to walk through the door. And on several occasions my dad even picked up the phone to call him before remembering he was gone."

"How old were you?"

"Eleven."

"I'm sorry. Do you remember him?"

"A few things here and there."

"I wish all the time Payton was still here." Honor turned and opened the door in silent invitation. Bryce softened things inside her, and while having Payton in common hurt too much for anything serious to happen between them, maybe they could let each other off the hook now and then.

"She's lucky to have had a friend like you."

Honor squeezed her eyes shut. "I'm the lucky one," she said under her breath.

Sunlight spilled into the s.p.a.ce and she hurried over to the windows to let in some fresh air. Turning to find Bryce scanning the large room, she almost changed her mind and asked him to leave. The far left wall cried out for new paint. The hardwood floor needed a few new boards and sanding, and once she found the right screwdriver, she'd a.s.semble the pile of shelves.

Several pieces of furniture decorated the s.p.a.ce, but boxes overflowing with fragile items wrapped in newspaper sat in no particular order in the corners.

"It's nice," he said, his voice sincere, and her overactive nerves calmed. "Is the s.p.a.ce below yours, too?"

"Only until Mr. Case rents it. For now he's letting me store a few things for free."

Bryce raised his eyebrows. "You're leaving something out."

How did he know that? "Okay, not exactly free. I'm helping him get a date with Shirley in the mayor's office."

"How's that going?"

She lifted some loose papers on the small desk in the middle of the room. "Have you ever tried getting two stubborn senior citizens together?"

He came up beside her. "Can't say that I have. You looking for something?"

"My measuring tape." She searched the desk drawer to no avail. "I wanted to measure one of the walls."

"We could do it the old fashioned way with our feet. I'm a size eleven, so that'll get you a pretty close measurement. Which wall?" He wandered over to the help-me-I-need-paint wall.

"That's the one," she managed to get out, her mind having immediately jumped to shoe size indicating another size. Or was it big hands that meant a big- "Back me up here, shop owner." He gestured her over with a lift and tilt of his chin.

She hustled to his side while she extinguished all thoughts of inches and how she'd felt him pressed up against her their night in his hotel room.

"You all right? You look a little flush."

"Fine." She glanced down with every intention of looking at his feet, but got stuck on his zipper instead. Involuntary and sooo inconvenient, given he cleared his throat. Her gaze jumped back to his handsome face.

His very nice white teeth sparkled. c.r.a.p. He'd caught her checking out his junk. This man dis...o...b..bulated her from here until Tuesday.

"Like what you see?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." She kept eye contact, daring him to call her bluff.

"I could show you."

She shook her head. They couldn't flirt and keep the tenuous connection they'd just established. "No. You can't."

"You're right." He pressed a hand to the wall and looked down. "Sorry. I forgot myself for a minute."

"It's okay. I did, too." Turning off the feelings he triggered whenever he stood close hadn't been as easy as she'd hoped it would be. "So, measurement?"

"Let's do it."

With silent agreement, they focused on his shoes and she quietly kept track of each step he took along the wall.

"Fifty-seven," he said at the same time she said, "Fifty-three." She'd let his very nice counting voice intrude on her thoughts for a couple of seconds, but she thought she'd stayed with him.

"One of us can't count," he teased before his attention drifted and he veered around her to pick something up off the floor. "Look what I found." He held up the tape measure.

She snagged it from him. "Five bucks says I'm closer."

"You're on."

They worked together to take the measurement, Bryce hanging on to the metal dispenser while she pulled the tape. "Sixty-two," she said, letting go and watching it fire back into its case.

Bryce gave a small victory smile. He put the tape measure on a box marked "Roseville" in messy black marker and strode toward her. "Tell you what, keep the five and tell me about that." He nodded toward the small square pillow sitting on the window ledge that Payton had made for her.

Happy surprise filled her at his notice. She sighed. "It's beautiful and awful at the same time, isn't it?" A five year-old boy, hands caked with mud, sewed better than Payton.

"Is that supposed to be a b.u.t.terfly on there?" Bryce followed her toward the window.

"Yes." Honor picked up the unskillful gift she loved more than anything. "Payton made it for me."

"With her eyes closed?"

"We both know she was about as artistic as a baboon." She glanced up at him. "A really pretty baboon." His blank expression threw the beat of her heart off for a second. Maybe he didn't know that about her. "Anyway, I thought it should have a home here."

"The saying underneath the b.u.t.terfly is familiar."

You're my estate, it said. "It's taken from Emily d.i.c.kinson. Her quote goes, 'My friends are my estate.' I'm surprised you recognized it."

"My sister is big on literature."

Honor nodded. She didn't know he had a sister.

"Payton told me you were the most important person in her life."

"Until she met you."

He shrugged. "I don't think so. If she was as committed to me as I was to her, then I would have been with her until the end, too."

Bryce's pained expression was like a hundred poison arrows to her heart. She knew he valued relationships. Payton had shared that he'd had several girlfriends before her. Nothing too serious, but he liked commitment. He didn't do things halfway or without care. Another reason he was completely off limits to a girl like her.

The only thing Honor had committed to was tying her Nike's. And that was because she'd tripped over the d.a.m.n laces one too many times when left undone.

She had selfish bones she wasn't proud of.

Even if she wanted to get to know Bryce better, she couldn't. She'd fail him, just like she did everything else, and she hated the thought of failing something so good.

Lance flashed through her mind. Her high school boyfriend had wanted forever with her. A year behind him in school, they'd been together a year when his Senior Prom arrived. "I've got a very important question to ask you tonight," he'd told her the morning of the big party. She'd silently freaked out. She was only seventeen and while she loved Lance in her own way, she didn't love him the way he wanted. His proposal-she knew that was the question-loomed over her with a death grip on her chest all day and when the time came to go to prom with him, she couldn't do it. She bailed and went for a drive down the coast with Bobby Gibbs. Bobby was only a friend, there to lend support, but her selfish action had hurt Lance. Rather than talk to him like she should have, she'd taken the coward's way out.

The next day Lance hurt himself.

"You're not a commitment kind of girl," Lance said when she visited him in the hospital. "Deep down I knew that...you're no good, Honor, not to anyone."

She'd nodded her agreement as he continued to insult her and then she'd left, hating herself and what she'd done.

"Honor?" Bryce's voice broke into her recollection and brought her back to the present.

"I need to go," she said, putting the pillow down and sidestepping around him. She hated hearing concern in his voice. Hated that he may have seen something on her face she didn't want him to see. Eager to get out of his reach, she tripped over a broken floorboard and fell to her hands and knees. "Dammit." Pain stung her kneecaps.

Bryce's warm touch wrapped around her arms. He lifted her up. "You okay?"

"Fine." She shrugged out of his hold, but the flash of comfort his gentle grasp elicited lingered. "Just have a ton of things to do today." The first of which included putting as much s.p.a.ce as possible between her and the man who stirred up way too many unwelcome emotions.

Honor's unrestrained laugh drew Bryce's attention for the tenth time. He couldn't stop keeping track of everything she did. Meet his gaze from the other end of the L-shaped dining table? Four times. Twirl her finger in her hair? Five times. Smile at something the guy sitting next to her-Drew, Mark's brother-said? One time too many.

The sound of silverware striking a gla.s.s broke into his calculations and drew his attention. Zane stood up.

His best friend cleared his throat. "Thank you all for being here tonight and this weekend." A visible swallow made its way down Zane's throat before he glanced down at his bride-to-be and took Sophie's hand in his. "I never imagined I was good enough to find this kind of love and happiness, but somehow this amazing, beautiful woman decided I was worth something. She's taught me so much these past six months and I think I've taught her a few things, too." Sophie blushed. "For the rest of my life she's stuck with me and every single day she'll know what a gift she is." Sophie stood, kissed his cheek, and whispered something in his ear.

And no d.a.m.n way. Zane's cheeks actually reddened. Bryce smiled. Throw every adjective at his friend-infatuated, enamored, captivated, mad about, hot for-and Zane had it ten times worse.