Page 28 of Surrendering Her Heart

She took the opportunity to grab them back. One floated to the floor. “Listen, I may have come up with the idea and name for the store, but all the most delicious and creative honey ideas were Allie’s.”

Cash shook his head and grabbed the last recipe from the floor. “Jo-Jo, what happened to you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean what happened to me?”

“You’ve lost all your confidence in your creative abilities,” Cash said.

She grit her teeth and shoved the papers into the file, minus the one he now held out of reach. “Like you could know. You haven’t been around for years. You know nothing about me.”

He stepped closer. “That’s not fair.”

She spun toward him, her finger jabbing in his chest. All the anger she’d pushed down from all those years ago racing to the surface. “You know what’s not fair? You not showing up to take me to the promyouasked me to and leaving town without so much as a goodbye on the same night. That’s not fair. And then you show up here and act like nothing ever happened. You insert yourself into my life without even asking, and make me feel things for you again I’d moved on from, whilst planning to leave in two days. Don’t even get me started about fair.” She grabbed all the files and shoved them in the safe again.

“Jo-Jo,” Cash said, moving to stand next to her. “Look at me.”

“No.” She crossed her arms.

He shoved her recipe in his back pocket, and for a split second, she thought about going after it. He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I had to get out of town.”

Her entire junior year she’d known Cash would graduate and leave town. It’d been inevitable as the sun rising in the east. But then the end of the year had gotten closer, he’d dumped his third girlfriend of the year, and then on a seeming whim had asked her to prom.

It had ticked her off, wondering what he was playing at. They were friends, and now he was asking her out? She’d turned him down flat half a dozen times. But he’d refused to give up.

The night she’d relented, he’d found her out at the tree house on her family’s property, under a big old Southern Live Oak, that the two of them had spent their younger years climbing, and their high school years studying under. She remembered it as clearly as if it’d happened yesterday.

She’d fallen asleep on a big blanket.

His tall frame shadowed her from the sun, darkening the light behind her eyelids.

She blinked up at him and groaned in exasperation. “What now?”

“You’re hiding from me?” he asked.

“I thought I’d give this daily asking-me-to-prom farce a break.” She stood and grabbed the blanket, shaking it out.

“It’s not a farce.” He grabbed the blanket too, refusing to release it until she looked at him.

She yanked the blanket from his fingers. “You know, I really thought we were friends, but apparently I’m just another conquest. If I went out with you, what girlfriend number would that make me this year? Four? Fifty?” She turned her back on him, and he moved quickly so he stood in front of her once more.

“You are my friend, Jo-Jo,” he said. “You’re my best friend.”

Her voice cracked as she tried to hold back a sob. “Then why are you doing this?”

He grabbed her shoulders. “Because I’m tired of everything in my life being fake.”

“Oh, thanks a lot!” She tried to pull out of his grasp.

“Stop fighting me,” he growled, his tone and stern look telling her he wanted to rattle her senseless, but his touch, while firm, remained gentle. “Jo, you’re going to hear it all.”

She grit her teeth. “Fine. What?” She crossed her arms.

“Everyone thinks I have the perfect family; they think I’m the perfect student, have the perfect girlfriend, and perfect future prospects,” he said.

She scoffed. Aside from his family life, everything else he’d said was spot on.

“It’s not true. None of it is, and I’m sick of it. I can’t be the golden boy anymore.” He let her go. “The only reason I did as well in school this year as I did is because your dad tutored me in the afternoons while you and Allie were running track after school.”

She sucked in a breath. Her dad had done that?