“Whoa,” I blurt, unable to stop myself as the room spins and my legs tremble. My skin runs cold, but I break out in a full-body sweat.
“Scarlett, are you okay?” Audrey asks, rushing to the edge of the couch while Bull quickly stands to face me.
“I . . . yeah, I just think I stood too fast.” However, that isn’t the full explanation because that rush to my head has now settled back down to my belly.
“You sure you’re okay? You look a little gray,” Audrey asks.
“I . . . excuse me.” Rushing around the couch, I fight the pull to look at Bull as I disappear behind the counter, bypassing our waiting customers with one finger in the air, and then press out the door to the grassy area behind the building for some much-needed fresh air. Once outside, I promptly bend forward and heave.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” Audrey says behind me, and I close my eyes, embarrassed by my position in front of my boss. Audrey’s younger than me, but a good businesswoman and kind-hearted. She took me on without any prior experience in the coffee industry.
“Yeah. Just something I ate, I think.” I honestly don’t know. It’s been a couple of weeks like this; nausea, fatigue, and then if I do get sick, which doesn’t always happen, I feel a million times better once I vomit. “I just have a little stomach bug, but I don’t have a fever. I’m so sorry about this.” I point at the grass, which holds the evidence of how my stomach felt. “And that.” I nod toward the café.
Audrey’s brows crease as she examines my face. “What else is wrong? As far as how you are feeling?”
I consider it a second and then answer. “My boobs hurt. My back kills. And I had a lobster roll for breakfast the other day. I think there was something wrong with the mayonnaise.” Then I reconsider what I’ve said. The other morning, that sandwich had been the best damn lobster roll in the world and the last thing I’d ever eat when it comes to a breakfast item.
Audrey’s lips slowly curl, and her eyes spark like she knows something. “Scarlett, could you be pregnant?”
“What? No. Heavens no. Absolutely not. I . . .” I stare back at her, horrified at the notion. I’m forty-two. I’m recently separated. I cannot be pregnant at this stage of my life.
“No. I am definitely not pregnant.”
Six Weeks and Counting
Bull
The next day, I return to the Busy Bean Café in hopes to find Scarlett.
“Sorry, Bull. She asked for the day off,” Zara Rossi tells me. Zara is the second owner of the Busy Bean Café and a dark-haired beauty with a willowy body. She’s a tough one—married to a professional hockey player and running this coffee shop.
Zara checks something and then assures me, “She’ll be in tomorrow.”
Taking my dark roast coffee out to my truck, I sit a second, letting the steamy liquid cool as I try to collect my thoughts—again.
Scarlett popping up from behind the couch in the café yesterday was more than a shock. I nearly had a heart attack, and it wasn’t just the surprise of seeing her. My heart did a two-step jig of excitement.
She was still here.
During our one night, Scarlett told me how she was visiting Rita and wouldn’t be staying in town long. I took the information as further evidence that a one-night stand with her was best. No point in getting attached when you know in advance someone is leaving, and attachment was the last thing I needed. I’d already been left behind too often without a hint the person was going. The night with Scarlett was a sign the boys were right, and one night would reset me.
It’s a reason I finally gave in and contacted Louisa Miller. I won’t actually say I called her. More like stumbled into a conversation with her at the tractor supply store that left me agreeing to go out with her. After second-guessing that decision, I got Louisa’s phone number from Clayton, knowing somehow he’d have it, and worked my way out of dinner plans to a cup of coffee instead.
Because I haven’t stopped thinking about Scarlett. That vibrant red hair. Those dark brown eyes. That sexy mouth of hers. Sinful is more like it, and she used that mouth on me twice. She also made these little noises that turn me hard just thinking about her, and I’ve been overthinking.
I should have left her my number or gotten hers.
I wanted to linger in bed that morning, take her out to breakfast, and plan a day with her, but that defeated the purpose of a one-night stand, and that is all we agreed to. As soon as I felt that tug to stay, I knew I needed to leave. Even though I got out of two weeks of morning milking, which I did not take Clayton up on, I didn’t like the empty sensation I had after that night.
My insides ached a little at walking away. Scarlett felt different than the women in my past. I couldn’t explain it, but it felt like she belonged in my arms and in my bed. She belonged with me, but then again, wasn’t that feeling always the first sign of my downfall.
Then there she was, springing up from behind the couch when I was sharing coffee with Louisa.
“Scarlett Russell works here?” I had asked Roderick, the baker, who stood behind the counter after Audrey followed Scarlett out the back door.
“Yes. She’s been here about six weeks, I guess. She’s the worst barista ever but the best kind of person.” My head lowered, and my cheeks flushed. How did I not know this? How did I not know Scarlett stayed?
Then again, it’s rare I head into Colebury during the daylight hours and even rarer that I give in to the luxury of coffee from a café. We’ve got a pot that works just fine for brewing the liquid gold at the farm.
“Is everything okay, Bull?” Louisa had said from behind me yesterday, reminding me of where I was and why I was there.
My head popped up, and I stared at the closed door leading out the back of the building.
Crap. Crappity, crap, crap.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I lied, scratching at the back of my neck. Roderick tilted his head, looking up at me, and I honestly didn’t know how to talk my way out of what was happening. Before Louisa interrupted me, I was about to ask Roderick if he’d take my number for Scarlett or maybe I could get hers from him, or just anything.
“We should be going,” I’d muttered instead, ignoring my cup of coffee on the low table and the muffin I no longer had the stomach to digest. Louisa wasn’t happy, and I’d like to have said I’d make it up to her, but I knew I wouldn’t. I’d be chasing down a woman who I let slip away from me instead.
Returning the following day, a startled Scarlett watches me stalk to the counter. Since two days prior, her color has returned. I’d never seen a person turn that shade of molten gray, not even my youngest brother, Blade, when he drank too much on his twenty-first birthday.
“Scarlett.” My voice comes out a little breathless, considering I’m trying to play it cool and not rush to the questions hammering inside my head.
“Bull. What can I get you?” Her voice is tight, pinched even, which is not how I remember her. She nods at the menu.
You? “Dark roast, black only.”
“Thank God,” she mutters, turning around and working a machine that looks like one of our milkers. An awkward silence fills the air around us as the only sound is the stream of coffee pouring into a mug. Scarlett turns back to me, hands shaking and coffee wobbling against the insides of the ceramic. Without thinking, I reach for it, steadying her fingers with mine over hers.