Chapter 12
DIEGO
“Last call!” I rang the brass bell behind the bar.
The crowd had thinned considerably, but a few diehards remained, nursing their drinks. The band was packing up their equipment, guitar cases snapping shut and amp cords being coiled. The lead singer gave me a thumbs up as he hefted a speaker toward the door.
Jamie emerged from the kitchen, untying his apron. “Kitchen’s clean. I’m heading out unless you need anything else?”
“We’re good.” Gillian counted out his tip share. “Thanks for staying late with that last burger order.”
“Not a problem.” He pocketed the money with a nod. “Good to have you behind the bar, Rivera. Doc’s trained you well.”
I smiled. “Just filling in where needed.”
Megan and Tyler, the two servers, finished wiping down their sections and joined us at the bar. Gillian pulled out four shot glasses and a bottle of Jameson.
“Tradition.” She poured a finger of whiskey into each glass. “Doc always says a good night deserves a proper toast.”
We clinked glasses, the amber liquid burning pleasantly as it went down. The servers said their goodbyes, and suddenly the bar was empty except for us. After hours of noise, the silence was heavy.
“Want me to lock up while you count the register?” I asked.
Gillian nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “That would be great.”
I moved through the bar, checking the back door was secure, turning off the neon signs, and flipping chairs onto tables. I well knew that Huckleberry Creek had long since tucked in for the night.
When I returned, Gillian was finishing with the cash drawer, looking satisfied.
“Good night?” I asked.
“Seems like.” She rolled her shoulders. “My dogs are barking, though.”
I glanced down at her stylish ankle boots. “Those can’t be helping.”
“They’re not my usual courtroom heels, at least.” She smiled, and something loosened in my chest at the sight. She looked more relaxed than I’d seen her since she’d been back—tired around the edges, but her eyes were bright.
I leaned against the bar. “You looked like you were having fun tonight.”
“I was.” She sounded almost surprised by the admission.
“I’d forgotten how much I enjoy this place.
Not just the bar itself, but the people, the stories...
” She trailed off, looking around the empty saloon with something like fondness.
“It was nice to think about something other than contracts for a night.”
“Is it ever actually nice to think about contracts?” At her raised brow, I added, “That’s no shade on your profession. I just can’t wrap my brain around anybody finding that fun.”
Her lips quirked. “Says the man who runs into burning buildings for a living.”
“Touché.”
I grabbed the broom and started sweeping while she wiped down the bar. We worked in companionable silence, the only sound the soft swoosh of the broom and the occasional clink of glasses being carted back to the dishwasher.
The tension she’d been carrying since arriving in town had softened around her eyes and mouth. She looked more like the Gillian I remembered—the one who used to laugh freely under summer stars, who’d wake me at dawn to watch the sunrise from the overlook.
She absently stacked clean glasses. “The band was really great tonight. I wish I’d had the chance to dance.”
The broom stilled in my hands. Something about her casual admission, the tiny glimpse of desire for something simple had me setting the broom aside and crossing to the vintage jukebox in the corner that was Doc’s pride and joy.
“What are you doing?” She turned, cloth still in hand.
I fed a dollar into the slot and scrolled through the selections. “Fixing an oversight.”
The opening notes of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” filled the empty bar—the Elvis version, slow and rich with promise. I walked back to where she stood, watching me with wide eyes.
“Dance with me.” I held out my hand, not a question.
She hesitated, her fingers tightening on the bar rag. “Diego...”
“One dance. The floor’s empty, and the night’s almost over. When was the last time you danced just because you wanted to?”
Something flickered across her face—consideration, temptation, and finally surrender. She set down the cloth and placed her hand in mine.
The moment her palm met mine, electricity raced up my arm like wildfire through dry timber.
The calluses on my fingers caught slightly against her smooth skin as I led her to the middle of the empty floor, weaving between tables with their upturned chairs like silent spectators watching from the shadows.
The overhead lights had been dimmed to their lowest setting, casting everything in a warm amber glow that made the space feel intimate.
When I drew her into my arms, she came willingly, her body finding its place against mine as if we’d been designed as complementary pieces of some cosmic puzzle.
Her hand rested lightly on my shoulder, fingers barely grazing the fabric of my T-shirt, and I kept what I thought was a respectable distance between us as we began to sway to Elvis’s honeyed voice.
But three notes in, she sighed—a sound so soft I sensed it more than heard it—and moved closer, closing that careful gap I’d maintained. Her cheek came to rest against my chest, right over my heart, and I wondered if she felt it stutter at her touch.
The scent of her hair filled my senses completely—floral again and something warm and spicy that reminded me of summer evenings and promises we’d once made under starlight.
I closed my eyes, drinking in every detail, committing this stolen moment to memory like a photograph I could pull out later when the loneliness got too heavy.
The warmth of her against me, solid and real.
The slight curve of her waist beneath my palm, exactly as I remembered but somehow more precious now.
The barely audible hum she made along with the music, unconscious and utterly endearing.
We moved in slow, lazy circles across the empty floor, our feet finding an easy rhythm on the worn hardwood.
With each turn, each gentle sway, she relaxed more fully against me until I could feel her heartbeat matching rhythm with mine through the thin cotton of my shirt.
My fingers spread wider across her lower back, drawing her incrementally closer until there was barely a breath of space between us.
“I’ve missed this,” she whispered, her breath warm through my shirt.
“Dancing?” But I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
She tilted her face up to mine, eyes reflecting the dim lights above. “You.”
One word, but it unraveled something tightly coiled inside me.
I’d been so careful since she returned—keeping my distance, respecting boundaries, pretending I could handle being “just friends.” But with her looking up at me like that, warm and soft in my arms, I no longer remembered why I’d been fighting this.
My hand moved from her back to her face, thumb tracing the delicate line of her cheekbone. She didn’t pull away. Instead, her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt, anchoring herself to me.
“Gill...” Her name came out rough, a question and warning both.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth, then back up, dark with unmistakable want. The music swelled around us, but we’d stopped moving, suspended in this fragile moment between past and present.
We were standing on the edge of something dangerous, something I’d spent years trying to forget.
The rational part of my mind—the part that had learned to compartmentalize, to stay calm in crisis situations—was screaming warnings.
But with her breathing my air, her body swaying in perfect rhythm with mine like she belonged there, like she’d never left, I couldn’t remember a single reason not to fall.
The space between us had become electric, charged with all the unspoken words and buried feelings we’d been dancing around since her return.
I watched her eyes darken as they dropped to my mouth again, lingering there with an intensity that made my breath catch.
The want in her gaze was unmistakable, mirroring what I knew she saw in mine.
Time suspended between us—one heartbeat, two, the world narrowing to just this moment, this choice—before I gave in to what we both wanted.
My hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, fingers threading through the silky strands of her hair as I lowered my head to hers. The last coherent thought I had was that I was about to cross a line I’d drawn for both our sakes.
When our lips met, the years vanished like smoke.
She tasted exactly as I remembered—sweet with a hint of whiskey from her drink—but there was something new too, an edge of desperation that matched my own, a hunger that spoke of all the nights we’d both spent wondering what if.
Her hands tightened in my shirt, the fabric bunching under her grip as she pulled me closer, rising on tiptoe to deepen the kiss with a boldness that made my heart race.
I backed her against the edge of the bar, the solid wood providing support as my free hand found the curve of her waist, fingers splaying across the soft denim of her jeans.
She made a soft sound against my mouth—half sigh, half moan—that shot straight through me like lightning, and I angled her head to kiss her more thoroughly.
All the careful distance I’d maintained disappeared the moment her lips parted under mine.
My thumb traced the delicate line of her jaw as our tongues met, and the small shiver that ran through her body was almost my undoing.
The jukebox had gone quiet, but I heard the pounding of my heart, the small gasps she made when I briefly pulled away only to come back for more.
I couldn’t get enough. Each brush of her mouth made me hungrier for the next, and when her fingers slid up to tangle in my hair, I groaned against her lips.
We were tangled together like we’d never been apart, like our bodies still remembered every way we fit together. Her curves pressed against me, soft and warm, and I wrapped my arm more firmly around her waist, needing her closer.
Reality slowly seeped back in, and I reluctantly broke the kiss, though I didn’t let her go. I rested my forehead against hers, both of us breathing hard. Her eyes remained closed, lips slightly parted and swollen from my kisses.
Should I apologize? I hadn’t meant for this to happen, not really. We’d been dancing around this since she came back, but I’d promised myself I wouldn’t push because she was stretched so thin and vulnerable.
Her eyes fluttered open. She gazed up at me, pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed. Her fingers were still playing with the hair at the nape of my neck, sending shivers down my spine with each gentle tug.
“I guess that was inevitable.” Her murmur was huskier than usual. “We were always good together.”
The vulnerability in her eyes stole my breath. “Yeah.” My thumb brushed across her lower lip. “We were.”
She leaned into my touch, and I wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, to take her home with me, to wake up with her in my arms tomorrow. But I held back. This wasn’t just about what I wanted—what I’d always wanted. She had a life somewhere else, plans and ambitions I didn’t factor into.
I forced myself to remember that she was leaving. We were down to a week. And even though every cell in my body was screaming to hold on and never let go, I wouldn’t trap her. I’d done that once before, making her choose between me and her dreams. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“We should probably finish closing up.” I brushed a strand of hair from her face.
She nodded but made no move to step away. “Probably.”
“Gill...” My voice was rough with everything I couldn’t say.
Her eyes searched mine. “I know.”
We stood there another moment, suspended between what was and what could be, before she finally stepped back. The loss of her warmth was physical, and I had to fight the urge to pull her back into my arms.
Instead, I helped her finish cleaning up in a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable but was heavy with unspoken words. When we finally walked out to her car, she turned to face me one last time.
“Thank you for tonight,” she said. “For everything.”
“Anytime.” I meant it more than she knew.
She rose on her toes and pressed a soft kiss to my lips—brief but unmistakably deliberate—before sliding into her car.
I watched her drive away, the flavor of her still on my lips, wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life or found my way back to the only thing I’d ever truly wanted.