4. 4
4
Honey
M y desktop fan was on the highest speed, blowing breezy goodness onto my face while I sat scrolling on my laptop. The air conditioner alone wasn’t enough today. Duke lay on his side behind me with his own fan I’d purchased for him. I was glad I’d opted to wear a bell-sleeved blouse and high-waisted shorts, although my feet were beginning to swell around the straps of the wedge sandals. Right on schedule, the mid-afternoon sun began blasting through the window next to the counter and as I did every day at the same time during summer, I yanked the cord of the blind to shut it out.
For the millionth time that day, I checked my phone despite it sitting right next to my laptop. My heart sunk with no messages. I hadn’t heard from Beau since he’d left a voicemail to say he and his dad arrived home safely this morning. My offer to come over after I’d finished work had been quickly rejected. He claimed he’d been too tired from the drive. Which I would’ve believed if I hadn’t known Beau was the type of guy to work sun up to sun down training horses.
I’d sent six messages to him since then, and they glowed back at me unanswered.
I’d never been so confused. I’d been the one messing with his head by ignoring his calls and messages, but now that he was doing the same to me, I didn’t like it. I was unsettled. It made me feel sick. Did that mean I didn’t want things to end between us? I’d been looking forward to talking it out with Ellie-May over lunch, but the primary school was doing Literature Day at the library and she wasn’t free. I knew what she’d say anyway.
‘If you truly loved him, and wanted to be with him, you wouldn’t be having these doubts.’
‘Honey?’
My body froze at that voice. My eyes refused to move from the laptop screen showing the store’s monthly finances. The tip of my pen remained poised above the paper, almost snapping in my clenched hand. It’d altered slightly in the years— that voice —but I was ashamed to admit my skin still prickled and flushed the same way it had when we were teenagers. I’d always despised my name, one my mother had mostly came up with while high as a kite. I mean, who named their child after a condiment? But when he said it, he made me feel special. I wasn’t named after something people smeared on their toast each morning. I was warm and dripping with sweetness.
I reminded myself to breathe as I dragged my eyes upwards. An entire lifetime of memories consumed me as I looked at him. Watching him scale the wall up to my bedroom window. Galloping on horses alongside each other. Drives to View Point. Sitting passenger in his ute with the wind whipping through my hair.
Kissing, laughing, loving.
Colton Hayes had remained the same but changed all at the same time. His eyes still looked through my body, their blueness clenching around my heart tightly. His skin remained that perfect golden tan. Dark brown hair curled around the edges of a trucker cap sporting the logo of one of his sponsors. He was taller. Broader. Tattoos decorated his toned arms exposed by the short sleeves of his t-shirt. A belt buckle sat between his hips. The bottoms of his jeans bunched at his boots. The teenage body I’d known, fit but lean, had undergone a knee-buckling metamorphosis. In front of me stood an American cowboy, the type that made authors like Elsie Silver rich.
Beau was attractive, a more ruggish version of his younger brother. But he never made my heart beat like it was now. He never made me swoon the way Colton had made me unashamedly do so. It was the first time I’d seen him in seven years and I felt like a fifteen-year-old eye-boggling her crush all over again.
I hated it.
‘What are you doing here?’ My words carried a brutal sting.
Did Beau know he was back in town? I closed my eyes. Of course he did. It was why I was being avoided. Something hot filled me, making my teeth grit and toes curl. How could he not tell me Colton was back in town? How could my own boyfriend allow me to discover my ex was back like this?
‘You look shocked to see me.’ When he spoke, there was now a slight twang to his voice, mixing in with his Aussie drawl. ‘Beau not tell you I was back?’
‘Yes,’ I snapped. ‘Of course he did. He’s my boyfriend, remember? We’re in love and tell each other everything.’
Colton looked amused, that same shit-eating grin he’d had his entire life fighting to break across his face. ‘Right. Well, I’m glad the both of you are so … happy.’ His eyes scanned all over me, seeming to linger where my hands gripped the counter for support, like he was searching for something. I clasped my hands behind my back and he cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I’m here to get Dad some books. Men like him aren’t designed for bed rest.’
‘Sure.’
I didn’t want to leave the counter, which acted like some kind of barrier against Colton’s … effect , but I also didn’t want to prove to him he still … affected me. I was a professional. I slid down from my stool, smoothed my clothes and tested my balance in my heels before making the brave steps towards him. Duke shadowed me, sensing my nerves, and I gave his head a grateful pat when he sidled up next to my waist. I didn’t miss the way Colton’s eyes raked me up and down from my curled hair to my toenails painted a soft pink. I’d dressed up with plans to meet Beau after work. I hated that part of me bathed smugly in Colton seeing me like this.
In fact, I was so concentrated with not looking like a fool in front of him … I did just that.
I gave a shout of surprise when my wedge hooked on an uplifted floorboard I’d been meaning to nail down for weeks. I pinched my eyes shut, able to do nothing but brace for my body to smack against the floor, only to snap them open when warm hands stopped me from doing so. Colton’s heartbeat thudded rapidly behind his hard— toned —chest pressed against my hands, and I felt my own replicate it.
‘Dang, girl. You’re falling for me all over again.’
It was his words which had me throwing myself from him, staggering slightly, like a cold bucket of water had been dumped on me. Ellie-May would be slapping me silly if she were here witnessing this. Colton had left me. He’d been perfectly fine with leaving his heartbroken ex-fiancé while he galivanted across the States on the backs of bucking bulls. He didn’t know the half of what I’d endured after he left, and here I was allowing myself to quite literally stumble back into his arms like none of it happened.
I gave a loud scoff. ‘You bull riders sure do have a way with words. How many times have you used that line this week?’
If I wasn’t mistaken, Colton’s bravado looked a little rattled. ‘Damn, Honey. I was just trying to lighten the mood.’
‘Lighten the mood? It’s going to take more than a cheap pick-up line as a joke to lighten the mood after what you did! You left me— everyone —behind, Colton. I’m with Beau now.’ I tugged the hem of my shorts sharply. ‘So why don’t you have some respect for your older brother and stop hitting on his girlfriend?’
He looked dumbfounded. ‘Honey …’ He closed his eyes. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just, seeing you again, it—’
‘What does your dad like?’ I blurted, knowing his words would lead us to dangerous territory.
Colton blinked. ‘Uh … I dunno. Something with horses?’
I was glad to have a distraction, keeping my back turned to him as I moved along the shelves to find his dad the perfect book to stop him going insane on bed rest. I knew Clyde Hayes well and Colton hadn’t been lying when he said his dad wasn’t the type to happily laze around.
‘How is your dad going, anyway?’ I pulled a couple books from the shelf.
‘A pain in the arse, but on the mend. You would already know that though, right? Because you and Beau are in love and tell each other everything?’
My face warmed and I spun to face Colton, holding the books I’d selected in front of him to hide the fact he’d flustered me again. ‘Fleur McDonald is a great author. Not much of a horse theme throughout her books, but they’re about rural crime, following a detective who works on cases around farms and so on. Book twenty is about to be released, so if your dad is going to be bedbound for some time, then the series will definitely keep him entertained.’ I moved along the shelves. ‘Jane Harper is another great author who writes mysteries based in rural Australia. Chris Hammer, too.’
‘Who was that first chick you mentioned?’
‘Fleur McDonald?’
‘Yeah, I’ll take all of hers.’
I whirled around to face him, gripping the shelves when I staggered. Again. I might as well be barefoot and drunk.
‘That’s going to cost … a lot .’ Shaking my head, I pulled a book from the shelf. ‘Let him start with Red Dust, which is her first book. No use getting the entire nineteen books if he doesn’t like her style.’
Colton followed me back to the counter, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. I eyed the longhorn tattoo on his forearm as he did so. ‘You don’t do returns?’
I grinned sweetly. ‘Only for the locals.’
I typed up the sale and pushed the eftpos terminal to Colton, who tapped his card against it.
‘Maybe you just want me to keep coming back for the other books.’
I concentrated stupidly hard for someone putting one book into a paper bag. When I passed it over to him, flinching at his rough fingertips brushing against mine, I levelled him with a glare. ‘You should be grateful I’m not the type of ex-girlfriend who tricked you into blowing an absurd amount of money.’
Colton grinned and slid his shades back onto his eyes so my reflection glared back at me, but not before I noticed his gaze linger on my left hand again.
‘Anything else I can help you with?’ I forced my face to be impassive, hoping he didn’t notice the twitches in my muscles.
‘Nope. I got everything I need. I’ll see you around, Honey.’
‘No, you won’t!’ I shouted after him when he stepped outside, whistling like a lunatic to himself.
I used my thumb and forefinger to pry open the blinds, eyeing him dropping down into the driver seat of a very familiar ute. I hadn’t seen it in years. Beau and his dad, for some reason, never sold it, keeping it covered in the shed and regularly servicing it. It was their strange way of silently hoping Colton would one day come back. The black Holden rumbled to life, the sound bringing a tirade of memories as it tore down the main road. When it disappeared from sight, so did the strength I’d managed to muster whilst in Colton’s presence.
I rushed for the door, flipping the sign to closed and retreated back behind the counter. Tears steadily trickled down my face, ruining the make-up I’d so carefully applied to impress Beau tonight. I rubbed at the spot over my heart, the permanent reminder of what I’d lost. The tears came thick and fast. Duke whined, resting his big head on my lap and I cuddled him tightly. Colton would assume his return would only mean sending my heart into a tizzy.
What he didn’t know was that his return carried the pain of something so much more.