Chapter 2
Olive slid as low as she could without falling to the floor, trying to get below the sightline of the white picket fence.
“What are you doing?”
Gram asked.
“Hiding. You never saw me. I’m not here—”
“Could’ve fooled me,”
a male voice said.
The unbearably familiar male voice reminded her of some of the best times of her life.
And the worst.
With a grimace, she looked up.
Noah stood there, looking better than a guy who’d once ruined her life should, even with his eyes narrowed, his mouth grim, and those muscles in his jaw all bunched.
“Olive Porter, as she lives and breathes,”
he said with absolutely no inflection at all. Which meant she was ticked off on top of being ticked off. Ticked Off Squared.
Except . . . he hadn’t ruined her life. She’d ruined his.
“It’s nice to see you,”
Gram told him. “Been a while since you’ve been home.”
Noah used his most charming smile. “Adele. Looking good.”
Gram, being of the female persuasion, fell victim to Noah’s deliciously rugged charm, beaming. “Aren’t you the one.”
She glanced at Olive. “Is your Matt this sweet?”
Okay, first of all, Noah had never been sweet a day in his life. Sharp, funny, dangerous, yes. Sweet? Not a chance. And second, why had she thought it a good idea to make up a boyfriend? Why hadn’t she just said she didn’t need a man in her life? Because she didn’t, not even a little bit. Damn hindsight. “Matt’s far sweeter.”
Noah just smirked, the bastard. “I need to talk to you.”
Olive took another cookie. “I’m very busy right now.”
But he already had her by the hand, tugging her upright, leading her in that uneven gait, which gave her a pang straight through her heart.
Stupid heart.
She must’ve made some sound because he glanced back at her, caught the look on her face, and hardened his. “Feeling sorry for me?”
“Not even a little bit.”
She took a bite of the cookie she’d managed to hold on to.
“Nice to know the sarcasm didn’t change with the new look.”
Out of hearing range, Noah abruptly let go of her hand and stepped back from her like maybe he was trying to avoid the temptation of strangling her.
He could join her club.
Hands on hips, he gave a single shake of his head.
So he was disappointed in her. Well, he could get in damn line, because she was disappointed in herself too. She’d left here an eighteen-year-old country bumpkin who’d taught herself to look and act like a sophisticated, elegant woman who knew what she was doing. And it’d worked, even if she’d sacrificed any sort of personal life. Truthfully, her only boyfriend’s name was Loneliness. She popped the last bite of cookie into her mouth. Priorities. They were important. “So? What did you want to talk about?”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me?”
“Hey, if you wanted a cookie, you should’ve taken one off the tray.”
He just looked at her.
Okay, so he hadn’t been talking about the cookies and she knew it. But something she didn’t know . . . how had he managed to get even more good-looking with time? Used to be his eyes would warm when she amused him, and catch fire when he was aroused, but with those mirrored sunglasses back over his eyes, she had no idea what he was thinking, much less feeling. “It was all your own fault, you know,” she said.
He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head, ready to be enlightened.
“You didn’t look both ways!”
“You didn’t slow down before the crosswalk.”
She tossed up her hands in the way she always did when she knew she held some of the blame but wasn’t ready to admit it.
“Why are you even here?”
he asked. “To drop off another Dear John letter?”
As she’d never intended to write him the first one, she sure as hell couldn’t have stomached writing another. Or tell him why she’d left here in the first place. It’d only hurt him, and she’d done enough of that for this lifetime. And in any case, how upset could he have been, seeing as he’d never tried to talk to her about it. “Not everything’s about you, Noah. I’m just here to help your sister.”
“Good, because she needs you.”
This gave her a pang of guilt. She hadn’t been back much. She was lucky Katie was still her friend at all. Or that Noah was even speaking to her. “How are you doing with all this?”
Again he ran a hand down his face, like maybe he was fighting exhaustion and losing. “My brother-in-law and best friend is in a coma because of me, so how do you think I’m doing?”
“Sometimes an accident is just an accident. Mistakes happen, Noah.”
He removed his sunglasses, revealing those golden-brown eyes of his, the ones that had always been able to see right through all her crap. “I remember saying that to you after . . .”
She gave him a wry look and he let out a mirthless laugh. “It doesn’t help, does it?”
he said. “Empty platitudes.”
“Nope.”
They stared at each other, the air between them filled with recriminations, hurt, and, at least in her case, regrets.
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“If you mean I stopped wearing hand-me-down clothes, then yes. I changed.”
He shook his head. “It’s not what you’re wearing. It never mattered to the people who cared about you what you wore. You’ve changed,”
he said again. “On the inside.”
“I grew up.”
“Well, you’re still trying to run people over, so—”
She narrowed her eyes. “Not funny.”
“Not laughing. You bring . . . ‘your Matt’ with you?”
“No. You bring anyone with you?”
“Don’t have anyone to bring.”
She nodded, then plastered a fake smile on her face. “Well, this has been a whole bunch of fun, but I’ve gotta go.”
“Of course you do.”
She turned back. “Was that supposed to mean something?”
“The going gets tough, you get going.”
That this statement was one hundred percent true didn’t help. She drew a deep breath for a calm that did not come. Maybe because calm was hard to obtain with a lump in your throat the size of a regulation football. The man in front of her had been such a big part of her formative years. His entire family had been. They’d taken her under their collective wing and given her a sense of belonging she’d never had. But the hardened look in his gaze reminded her she’d blown that. Still, she couldn’t stop the question that escaped her. “Have you ever wondered what it’d be like between us now, as adults?”
He looked at her for a long beat. “Sometimes the past is best left in the past.”
She forced a smile. “Something we can agree on.”