Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
“It’s dairy. It’s definitely dairy, but…
” Bradley Benson closed his eyes, savoring another gigantic bite of the bacon-and-cheese-loaded potato skin, and moaned orgasmically.
“Oh my gosh. It’s so worth it. I haven’t been able to eat cheese in years.
It gives me liquid diarrhea.” He stuffed the last bite in and closed his eyes, nodding happily with a long string of melted cheddar hanging from his mouth.
“So sorry to hear,” Lily murmured, glancing surreptitiously at her watch.
Alas, Bradley Benson did not have a mustache.
He did, however, have a fascination with his food allergies, and after an hour and a half of being regaled with the intimate details of his gastrointestinal distress, Lily was ready to fake an asthma attack just to get out of there.
The date had crashed and burned somewhere around the phrase noxious gas, and now she was just focused on holding the flaming wreckage together until she could escape back to Evie’s apartment.
Lily let her gaze wander around the crowded Northfield Pub, packed as always on a Friday night with locals enjoying one of Killian Kennedy’s famous dinner specials and the wide selection of local Finger Lakes wine and beer.
Lily’s stomach rumbled pitifully—no maple bourbon-glazed pork chops with crispy brussels sprouts for her, thanks to Bradley Benson’s confessions.
She had to stop agreeing to these blind dates.
Amber sat at the bar, chatting with Killian and Ford Clairmont, Theo’s youngest brother, while Theo stood behind her, sipping a beer. Amber caught Lily’s eye and gave her a knowing wink and an eyebrow waggle, silently asking what everyone else in the bar was wondering.
Good date?
Lily smiled brightly and gave her a subtle thumbs-up. The best! So fun!
Then she looked away before her sister could read the truth on her face.
Amber looked radiant as usual, heavily pregnant and glowing, wearing a cream-colored sweater that would’ve made anyone else resemble a hay bale.
But not Amber. Of course not. Her sister glowed, like one of those women in maternity shoots who somehow managed to look ethereal while preparing to launch a human.
Theo reached over mid-conversation to rub his wife’s shoulders and press a kiss to her temple.
Lily swallowed, blinking fast.
It must be nice to be loved that way. She had certainly pictured that in her future. The happy home, the adorable kids. The husband who chose her without question. She was happy for her sisters, of course. Allie had Davis. Amber had Theo. And Lily… she had Bradley Benson and his cheddar string.
Lily glanced toward the dartboard, where a few of the guys from the Northfield Fire Department were playing darts.
There was Johnny Rossi with his fiancée, Grace Kelly lookalike Charlotte Thornton—they were getting married this summer—plus that handsome firefighter Jake Kinsey, Ethan Doyle, a whole table of rookies, and the fire chief, Peter Buttaglia.
Cap, as he was known around town, was dating her aunt Sophia.
He caught her eye and lifted a bushy white brow. You good?
She gave him a reassuring smile.
Across the room, the fire department heckled the sheriff deputies from the dartboard corner.
The rivalry between the sheriff’s department and the firehouse was as old as Northfield itself.
Mostly it played out over pool, darts, and the summer baseball league, where things got heated enough that Lily had once seen Cap throw his glove.
She knew many of the people here tonight. She’d grown up with some of the younger guys, gone to school with their sisters, danced at a few of their weddings with Tucker. They were good guys, and they were not subtle about watching out for her like their own kid sister.
Most of the friends she and Tucker had once shared had reached out over the last month to let her know they supported her, and what they thought of Tucker and the version of the story that he was trying to sell.
At first, he’d tried telling people she’d gotten cold feet and left him at the altar, humiliated and heartbroken.
That Lily was the flaky, sensitive one. Too dramatic to commit, instead leaving him behind to face everyone.
In Tucker’s version, he was the victim and Lily was a liar who’d just lit her life on fire on a crazy whim.
It wasn’t until the photo had leaked that the cracks in his story began to show, because it was hard to play the victim when the whole town had seen him with her best friend, virtually naked in a hotel room. There was no coming back from that.
But the flip side of the coin was that now everyone was watching out for her.
Small towns were fun.
Lily pasted a smile on her face and turned back to Bradley, ignoring the looks and the way her stomach growled. If she was lucky, Evie would save some leftovers of the Marry Me chicken. Strangely, she wasn’t hungry right at the moment.
Bradley wiped his mouth on a napkin, grinning across the table at her. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. His mother had told Lily privately that he just hadn’t found anyone meaningful who he clicked with yet, but Lily suspected there might be a few other reasons Bradley had trouble getting a date.
“Speaking of risks, did I tell you about that time I thought I could handle pepper jack? Disaster.” He leaned forward excitedly, and Lily let herself tune out.
She felt him before she saw him.
A flicker of sharp, bright energy that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck tingle and tiny pricks of awareness skim down her spine.
Her gaze drifted back toward the entrance and the man standing there, shaking the snow off his big sheepskin jacket and ever-present baseball hat.
Oh God. He was here.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. This was Northfield—everyone ran into everyone, eventually. They’d crossed paths here and there since the cabin. And yet, like always, the second she spotted him, her cheeks went hot. Damn her fair, redheaded complexion, giving her away like a human mood ring.
Rush Callahan filled the doorway, pausing to survey the room with that quiet, alert energy that made people shift out of his way without realizing they’d done it. A mix between awareness and protective watchfulness that her body automatically responded to.
A cheer went up almost instantly, rowdy applause and whistles from the deputies and firefighters clustered around the bar, and Rush’s expression went carefully blank.
“There he is! Hometown hero!” someone shouted enthusiastically, followed by whistles and claps on his broad shoulders, along with several calls to buy him a drink.
Ever since the accident, Rush had been elevated to hero status in the eyes of Northfield, even though Lily knew he didn’t see it that way.
He’d saved Chloe Whitmore, after all, swimming out into the canal that cold November night and pulling her from the wreckage when no one else could have.
The fact that he hadn’t been able to save Caroline didn’t diminish their admiration.
If anything, it deepened their respect for the mysterious, humble sheriff who hated the spotlight.
Rush ducked his head slightly, politely, and if she wasn’t watching him carefully, she would have missed the way his jaw tightened and how his smile was fixed on his face.
Her gaze trailed after him as he moved through the room, nodding to old friends and stopping to say a few words here and there, but even surrounded by the noise and welcoming in the bar, there was something about him that seemed… lonely.
The sight tugged at her heart.
He stopped to greet Amber and Theo, who also happened to be the mayor of Northfield.
Rush wasn’t in uniform tonight. When he shrugged off his jacket, the dark Henley underneath clung to the heavy muscles in his shoulders and chest. His jeans rode low on his hips, worn and soft and faded in all the right places, and when he leaned a forearm on the bar to order, muscles flexing under his swarthy skin, it was honestly just unfair.
He looked rugged and sexy and, unlike her date, not afflicted with a single dietary issue.
She let her eyes linger a few seconds longer, wondering idly if anyone else in this town fully understood that the sheriff of Northfield was, in fact, a walking sex fantasy.
Then she raised her eyes—to find him looking straight at her.
His lips curved just slightly, and he stared back. Dark. Steady. Knowing.
Busted.
A rush of heat flooded her cheeks so fast she was almost dizzy with it. She whipped her head back around like she’d just been caught staring at the sun.
“So,” Bradley was saying, gleefully dragging his potato skin through the sour cream, “you ever try oat cheese? It’s surprisingly moist.”
Kill me now.
She could still feel it. The weight of Rush’s gaze and the hum of chemistry that had about taken her out at the cabin.
“Are you gonna eat that last one?” Bradley asked, pointing at the plate between them.
Lily blinked. “You can have it.”
She reached for her drink, taking a slow sip, trying to cool the flush in her cheeks.
She was not still thinking about the way Rush’s warm body had felt moving over hers, the way his thigh had slid between hers.
The silky feel of his hair on her fingers as she held him to her breasts while he sucked and licked.
She pressed the glass to her cheeks as casually as she could manage.
And then the door opened again.
The cozy hum of the pub didn’t quite stop, but a subtle hush rippled through the room and the energy shifted, like someone had opened the door to let in a gust of something cold and unwanted.
Tucker. Oh, lovely. And he’d brought Madison.
She sensed his presence like a change in barometric pressure. Loud, smug, and utterly oblivious to the fact that he and Madison were not welcome faces. He strutted in, puffed up with his usual self-importance, and stomped the snow off his boots, one hand curled around Madison’s elbow.