CHAPTER 2 #2
“Maybe even more so.” I shrugged, trying to push down the lump rising in my throat. I had been gone too long.
“And even prettier.” Her gaze swept over me, slow and measuring, like she was checking for the damage she knew I hid behind my smile.
“I’m pretty sure you’re legally required to say that as my grandmother,” I said, smiling as she swatted at my arm.
“No.” She shook her head as she slowly moved past me and toward the steps I had just climbed.
“Some people have ugly grandbabies. That’s just the truth of it.
” She waved her hand over her shoulder for me to follow her, but she didn’t wait for me as she moved down the steps.
“I was fortunate I didn’t. I could never fake it. ”
“June!” I laughed as I trailed behind her.
“What?” She looked back at me with those amber eyes, and being with her felt like finding shelter in a storm. “It’s the truth. Let’s all say a prayer that your babies are pretty like you. If they aren’t, I’d have to lie to the ladies at my book club, and you know how I feel about lying.”
The old wood creaked as she leaned on the banister, but she still moved with purpose, even if she was slower these days.
She paused on the bottom step, glancing up at me. “Well? You comin’?”
Something loosened in my chest as I trailed behind her, my feet remembering the path before my mind could catch up. “Where are we…”
But then I saw him.
He rose slowly, brushing his hands over his jeans, the sun catching on the sweat at the back of his neck.
Heat flooded me until the only things I could focus on were the sound of my heartbeat and the sight of him.
He shifted his weight, moving with the easy authority of a man who owned every inch of ground beneath his worn boots.
He looked carved from memory and like a stranger at the same time.
It didn’t matter how much time had passed or how much he’d changed, seeing him was like a punch to the gut. I had left. I’d left because he’d told me to, and he was still here working away on his ranch, right next door to my grandmother’s farm, as if he hadn’t destroyed everything.
I took a small, instinctive step back, searching for something to hold on to, looking for anywhere to go but here. But then he turned, and I met his dark brown eyes. Eyes that didn’t belong to the boy who’d broken my heart.
They belonged to his brother.
“Hunter.” His name slipped past my lips, and he graced me with an easy, relaxed smile that seemed to light up his entire face as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Well, well, well,” he drawled before he leaned against the fence. “Look what the cat dragged home.”
His resemblance to Colt was like a physical blow.
Hunter was taller now, broader, his shoulders stretching the worn cotton of his T-shirt in a way they never had before. The lanky limbs and uncertain posture of Colt’s younger brother had been carved clean away and replaced with a man with a chiseled jawline.
But the grin he flashed me over the fence was exactly as I remembered. One corner of his mouth hitched higher than the other, and a dimple appeared in his left cheek. It was the same smile I had watched him give girls to make their knees go weak, devilish in a way that promised trouble.
He swung open the gate that separated the two properties, boots crunching through the grass as he watched me.
“You’re looking good, Blaire.” He tipped his head in my direction, and I forced myself to stand straighter.
“Careful, Hunter. Compliment me too much and I might think you’ve missed me.”
He laughed, and the sound curled through me. The deep rumble was warm and familiar in a way that made my skin prickle with warning.
He was far too similar to his brother.
“You wouldn’t be wrong.” His eyes traveled over me like he was taking inventory of the years between who I’d been and who I’d become. “We’ve all missed you. My mama still asks about you all the time.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
I had missed them too, of course I had. Colt’s family had once felt like where I belonged. His mother had been there for me when I’d lost my own, but they were little more than strangers now.
“Speaking of your mama, tell her I’ll call her later once Blaire and I are settled,” June said as she walked past him toward my car. “And make yourself useful and come carry her bags.”
Hunter chuckled, but I quickly interjected. “You don’t have to do that. I can manage.”
“It’s no trouble,” he replied with a wink, lifting the hem of his shirt to wipe his face. “It will give me a break from this damn fence.”
I glanced at June as Hunter pulled both suitcases from the back seat like they weighed nothing.
“I don’t know where I’d be without you Calloway boys.” June patted his shoulder, and I quickly looked away. “You can drop them on the porch. We’ll handle it from there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hunter replied before he moved past us and up the steps.
June was watching me with the smug assurance of someone who could read my thoughts like an open book, and her eyes twinkled with amusement.
“Don’t even start,” I warned as I pointed my finger at her.
She used to bring Colt up all the time after I left, and again, once she found out I was engaged to a man she called as useless as tits on a bull. But I always shut down conversations about him. I had wanted to know nothing about his life here. I couldn’t handle it.
“Didn’t say a word,” she replied, her tone light and teasing, but she didn’t press. She slipped her arm around my waist and guided me back up the porch steps. “We’ll talk later,” she whispered, her tone half affection and half warning.
Hunter lingered by the front door, one suitcase in each hand, as he waited for us. “You sure you don’t want me to take these upstairs?”
“That’s plenty, Hunter,” June told him before grabbing the door. “I appreciate your help, you handsome thing.”
A slow smile spread across his face, his cheeks flushing. “You’re good for my ego, Ms. June.”
“That ego doesn’t need no help.” She rolled her eyes. “Never has.”
Hunter chuckled before he finally set down the suitcases and ducked his head. “You need anything at all, holler.”
“Thanks, Hunter,” I managed, as we walked into the house.
It smelled of old pine floorboards worn smooth by decades of footsteps, strawberries so ripe their sweetness hung thick in the air, and the faint trace of June’s perfume.
It smelled exactly as I remembered, like home.
We rounded the corner into the kitchen, and there were baskets overflowing with vibrant berries that bled out onto the table. Some had juice seeping out and creating dark, sticky patches while others had shriveled like the forgotten casualties of a harvest too heavy for one woman to manage alone.
“Been busy around here. Shorthanded,” June said casually, wiping her hands on her apron, though her eyes lingered on me.
My throat tightened with all the things I could say, should say, but I couldn’t force the words out. Instead, I tied up my hair with unsteady fingers and grabbed the nearest basket, the wicker cutting into my palm.
“Where do you want me?” I asked, already scanning the room for the worst of the disaster.
She gave me a gentle smile, the one meant only for me, that used to heal every scraped knee and mend every broken heart, but even June’s magic couldn’t reach the fracture Colt left behind. “Why don’t you unpack your bags and get some rest? All of this can wait.”
I shook my head. I was far too anxious to sit still. “I’ll unpack later. I want to help.”
She pointed out the kitchen window toward the rows of strawberries, their ruby flesh glistening under the merciless Tennessee sun. “Need to save what we can before the heat turns ’em all to mush. My farm hands are picking as much as they can, but the harvest has been heavy this year.”
I kissed her temple, my lips brushing against the wisps of silver hair that had escaped her braids and moved to the back door. The hinges protested with a long, rusty whine as I stepped outside.
“I’m glad you’re back, baby,” June called after me. “It doesn’t matter what brought you. It just matters that you’re home.”