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off.
    She didn’t say those words, but she wanted to. Badly. Only she knew if she did, that he’d tell her no, and spend a day or two more at the most before leaving. Then she wouldn’t have any other option but to sell.
    An orange leaf glided down between them, landing partly on her hand and his arm. The wind picked up slightly, stirring the air between them.
    It had been the warmest September on record, and the heat wave had carried into October. Usually, her breath would be coming out in white puffs and she’d be in jeans, not capris pants.
    “I really do need you—your help,” she began, hoping against hope he believed her. “When my grandparents passed, they left the business in trust until I married. But if I were single by the time someone wanted to buy Chesson house, then I’d have to sell it.”
    “Would our marriage be a secret?” he asked, his voice low and husky.
    She made a face. “No. How else would your momma leave you—?” It hit her then. He didn’t mean a secret from anyone who lived here in Holland Springs. Her heart pinched. “You mean would I tell Bella?
    He worried his bottom lip. “Yeah.”
    “We could send her an invite, if you want.”
    “Up to you.”
    You are such a bad, bad liar , she thought sadly. He wanted Bella to see him moving on with his life. “I’ll invite them, but she probably won’t come since she’s on her honeymoon.”
    His jaw hardened. “Bella’s married?”
    She nodded. “She and Liam got married a couple of weeks ago—I thought you knew.”
    His eyes closed briefly. He put on a smile, but not before she glimpsed the grim pain in his eyes. She didn’t know what to make of that at all.
    “It wouldn’t be for long, if that’s a problem. I only need enough time to get the house in my name, and then we can go our separate ways.”
    “We’ll get a divorce?”
    She shrank back at little, not from him, but from the word. He made it sound so real. “But the two of us can sign a prenup—I don’t want your baseball earnings or anything you own.”
    “You don’t want anything from me,” he said.
    A shaky sigh left her. “Right.”
    “Just my name.”
    “Oh, not even that. Just the piece of paper filed with the clerk of—” She swallowed at the dark look on his face.
    “Do you realize how emasculating your proposal is? How fucking awful it is to be told that you’re only worth a piece of paper?” He pulled away from her, shaking his head while his jaw worked.
    “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s…” She looked away and then back at him again, for once allowing him to see the vulnerability she hid from the world. “I don’t want to sell Chesson House, Heath. It’s my home. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I need you to help me. You’re the only guy I can trust to keep his word.”
    His dark blue eyes searched her face. She felt raw, exposed, and she wanted to run away from him and hide. Pretend she hadn’t said a word and that there wasn’t an invisible countdown in her head.
    “Damn it, Haven. I don’t know what to say.” Uncrossing his arms, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You can’t just spring something like this on me and be so…honest, for once.”
    That’s because if you knew the truth of how I’ve always felt, you would mock me. Or worse. “If you need some time to deliberate, I can wait a day or two, but not much longer than that. The buyer is rather persistent.”
    He nodded. “I’ll let know you tomorrow night.”
    “Do you want me to call you or—?”
    “No, I’ll come by here,” he said.
    Haven watched him go to his truck, pulling out his phone along the way. Her stomach roiled, then knotted all up. She pressed her hand against it, wishing she could stop the surge of overwhelming feelings of hope and desperation as they got all tangled up in one another.
    “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” Turning, she went inside, grabbed another moving box, and started packing it.

Chapter Five
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