Chapter 4
CHAPTER
FOUR
LINDY
Wes stalked out of the store and down the street, the little boy asleep in his arms. I let out a huge, shaky breath and slumped back against the door. The breath I’d been holding since I spotted him with the toddler earlier was now a spiraling ache.
I’d assumed the boy was his son. They seemed so right together. And even though a sharp tug had cut through my insides at the sight of them, at the thought of Wes having a child, being married, being happy with another woman, something warm had flickered through me as well.
It was still there. No matter what I’d done over the past years to stop it. The second he’d walked into the shop, he’d sucked all the air out of the space, out of my lungs.
Since the moment Finger had told me I’d be living in Meager, the one thing foremost in my brain was that I’d have to see Wes again. For four years I’d managed not to lay eyes on him, to not be reminded of his villainy and my stupidity, my humiliation. And the crumbling of a precious dream.
My dream had been a silly fairy tale, a sham. A scam. But I was no longer that little girl who worshipped at his altar. If that’s what he’d hoped for he was wrong. Arrogant jerk.
“You look different.”
He noticed. He’d taken me in inch by inch when I first spotted him, which had given me some sort of pleasure. Had I offended him when I said he looked the same? But it was the truth. He’d practically stuttered for words, even lost his balance. That, too, had pleased me.
I’d heard he’d gone off to college, and it had to be four years since he’d graduated, but I couldn’t say he looked any different for it. Then again, what had I expected to see? A smoother, more sophisticated Wes? A suit and tie? And he hadn’t even joined his dad’s club?
A tremble went through me. He was the Wes I remembered. The Wes who made my insides melt with a look, with the feel of his hand sliding over mine, taking it in his. I’d never forgotten that feeling.
My Wes.
Shut up! He’s not your anything. Never was. It was all an act. All a lie.
He still had that same boy-next-door smile with a cryptic edge that made you want to kiss him and get under there, in there, be in on his secrets which promised to be dangerous and dangerously hot. Weren’t you the lucky one if he let you?
That same saunter, his beautiful thick hair, those full chiseled lips that always looked like they were ready to smirk, ready to seduce, ready to…
My fingers went to my lips. Years later his kisses still lingered no matter how hard I’d tried to obliterate the memories. My body remembered.
I pushed away from the door and got back to work. Those brooding blue eyes that swallowed me whole hadn’t changed either. This time, luckily, I’d been able to swim out of their indigo abyss. My heart pounded in my chest. This time. This was only the first time I’d seen him since I got here a few days ago. There’d be plenty more times, but the dreaded first time was now over.
Wes. My big crush. My first boyfriend. My first love who’d obliterated my heart and soul just as it had begun to beat for real.
Everything that had come out of that boy’s gorgeous, sexy mouth had been nothing but a blood-laced lie. Every touch of his warm hand, a teasing seduction rooted in hate and revenge.
I’d found out the truth later, and it was then I vowed I’d never be vulnerable to another man again. Not ever. The realization that I meant nothing—no, less than nothing to him the whole time had been so humiliating, so devastating. How could I have been so stupid?
I refolded the lacy halters for the third time, my hands pressing down on the silky pile. I was no longer that kid who believed a smooth-talking hottie on a motorcycle with a heavy, gleaming gaze that burned a hole through every cell in my body and ignited a blaze deep inside me.
Nope.
Instead, I’d made a career of taking from guys whenever I was in the mood, then walking away. One of the waitresses I worked with at the diner was always dreaming she’d meet a guy who would whisk her away from her humdrum life. That was a bull crap fairytale little girls were programmed to believe—someday we’d be chosen, we’d be saved by The One, a white knight, a handsome prince, a gray-suited billionaire, and he’d sweep us away to a perfect paradise.
Total baloney.
Little girls had to grow up fast and learn how to take care of themselves, learn how to watch out for assholes. I did.
My hand smoothed down my chest and settled on my middle where my insides had finally stopped tossing. Now it was over, this thing I’d been dreading since I’d left Nebraska. We’d seen each other. We’d talked. I’d told him to fuck off.
I checked the clock on the wall. Lenore would be here any minute, and I still had to redo the front display.
As I took off the lace robe from the steel cut-out mannequin in the bay window, an engine exploded loudly, and my gaze shot up. Wes riding a big vintage Harley, his jawline sharp, long muscular legs taut. In an explosive roar, man and machine picked up speed and tore down the road.
I let out a shaky breath that fogged up the front window. I’d lied to Wes.
He was different now. Hotter and sexier. No longer that boy, but a man. Taller, more muscular, more wicked… more everything .
And he melted my insides more than ever before.