It seemed that everywhere Shelby went, Batton Deats was there. When she headed into Port St. Joe to pick up fresh seafood for her grandmother—Batton was buying some as well. When she needed to grab a present for an old high school friend who’d just had a baby—Batton was strolling down the street right in front of her.
It seemed as if she couldn’t throw a rock without hitting her ex squarely in the head.
Worse, every time she saw him, the hurt that he’d caused her flared in her chest, bringing all the pain back. Since this was something she wanted most desperately to avoid, Shelby vowed to stop running into Batton no matter what. So when her grandmother requested that Shelby pick up some groceries, Shelby decided to go farther than Port St. Joe. She headed all the way into Panama City Beach, which was nearly an hour’s drive. There was no way on earth that Batton would go there because he hated that tourist trap of a town as much as she did.
So there, she would be safe.
As Shelby scoured the aisles gathering the items from the list that her grandmother had given her, she hummed happily to herself, knowing that this was the last place on earth that she would end up seeing her ex.
As she thought of him, unpleasant memories of what had happened between them ping-ponged in her head.
“Will you marry me?” he had asked her just before high school ended. They’d spent the day at the beach and had gone back to her house to clean up. Somehow he’d kept a ring with him the entire day, managing to keep it free from sand, so it was sparkling by the time he got down on one knee and proposed.
She’d said yes, of course, throwing her arms around his neck. The joy that filled her in that moment broke her heart in two as she replayed the memory in her head.
They’d been happy—blissfully happy—until everything fell apart. There were several weeks of school left, and he was on the baseball team. They’d gone away, traveling for a game. When he returned, Batton had told her that they should end things. That it was for the best.
It was so unexpected. Where had this come from, she had asked. He replied that it was the way things should go. He was sorry that they wouldn’t work out.
Didn’t he love her? She had begged him to answer, but he never replied.
Shelby had been devastated. How could he end things before they even began? She told him that she never wanted to see him again. Then she mailed the ring back to him and worked diligently to avoid him in school, making sure to take different paths to her classes and eating lunch where he wouldn’t find her. She was a senior anyway and didn’t have many classes left, so she could go to school late and leave early. It was easier to avoid Batton than she’d ever imagined.
Eventually he left, heading off to college and apparently becoming an architect. He probably had a beautiful girlfriend now and was calling her every day while he was here. Well, she would show him. Or maybe she wouldn’t since Shelby had decided not to care. Batton Deats would not take up any more real estate in her brain.
That was the exact thought going through her head when she rounded the corner of an aisle and crashed her cart into another one headfirst.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes flaring from the jolt of the minor collision.
“My fault,” came the reply in a voice that was impossible for her not to recognize.
“Batton?” she snapped, glaring into his blue eyes.
“Shelby?” he replied, sounding just as disgusted as her.
That was it. Was he following her? “Are you stalking me?”
“Stalking you?” His eyes narrowed to slitty wedges of death. “Why would I be stalking you?”
“That’s exactly what I want to know. But everywhere I go, there you are. I specifically came here because I know you hate this city.”
His eyes flared with anger. “Everywhere you go? Everywhere I go, there you are. I can’t get away from you. I knew our town was small, but I didn’t expect it to be so small that I’d run into you every five seconds. Believe me, I don’t want to see you any more than you want to see me.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Now get out of my way,” she commanded.
“Happily.”
They reversed their carts and headed in opposite directions. She went down the pasta aisle and he went down…a different aisle that she was too angry to remember what it stocked.
She was minding her own business picking out spaghetti sauce when a cart stopped beside her.
“I need some spaghetti sauce,” he said.
Oh. My. Gosh. Was he really beside her, asking her to move?
Shelby tipped her head and glared at him. “I was here first.”
“Then hurry up and pick one.”
“There’s a specific one my grandmother likes.”
“The one without sugar.” He reached over her, plucked it from the shelf and handed it over.
Shelby hesitated before taking it. When she did, her fingers brushed his, and a spark ignited her body. There was not supposed to be electricity between them. Shame on her bad body for betraying her like that.
“And if you want the pasta she likes, it’s over there,” he told her.
Her gaze tracked to where his finger was pointing, and sure enough, there was the brand and cut of pasta that she always got for her grandmother.
“You remember,” she whispered, a lump in her throat.
“Yeah.”
A thick silence blanketed them, and Shelby dared to look at him. His gaze was trained on her, those blue eyes searching hers in a way that made her breath hitch.
The desire to reach out and touch him pulsed through her veins, but she didn’t know anything about him now—not his life, not what he liked or didn’t like. But still, it seemed rude to just take the pasta and go, so she cleared her throat.
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s okay. Taking it easy, so I’m helping around the house.”
“Still working at the hobby shop?”
He rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like that’s what I do for a living. No. It was a one-day thing.”
“I see.” What a terrible reply, but she didn’t know what else to say. “Well, I’ll be seeing you around.”
But she didn’t move and neither did he. They continued to stare at one another as if daring the other to speak first.
“You know,” he said, a lopsided grin on his face, “you look exactly the same as you did in high school.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“I think so.”
She exhaled a shaky breath. Why was she nervous? She should be angry. “Then thank you.”
She pushed the cart forward, and his voice stopped her again. “How’s Vera?”
“She’s good.” Then she added, “Slowing down, as comes with age.”
“Same thing happened to my grandpa. It’s hard watching them slow down.”
“Yeah.”
“How’s the gas station?”
She cocked a brow and studied him skeptically. “It’s good. How’d you know we’re still running it?”
His hand flew to the back of his neck, and he rubbed, looking bashful all of a sudden. “I just…heard.”
“Ah.” It seemed impolite to not ask about him, so she managed, “How’s architecting?”
He chuckled. “Is that a word?”
“It is now,” she replied, folding her arms.
“It’s good. Better than I ever hoped.” His blue eyes shone on her, and Shelby remembered what it was like to be in Batton’s gaze. His eyes were a spotlight, and she was the star. “I’ve been offered partner at the firm.”
“Partner? Impressive. I’m sure you worked hard for that offer.”
“Harder than I would have liked.”
“What do you mean?” Shelby genuinely wanted to know, which both annoyed and surprised her.
A woman with three kids trailing behind her came up behind Shelby, and she pushed her cart on with Batton walking steadily beside her. There was barely room for both carts side by side, but he stayed with her, never bumping into a thing.
“Well,” he said in answer to her question, “making partner means making sacrifices.”
“Long hours?”
“Not just that, but it really puts a toll on your personal life. It’s hard to be a regular person when you’re working eighty hours a week.”
“As an architect?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” he said with a laugh. “It’s a competitive business.”
“But you love it?”
“Yes. I do. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else...but I’m not sure I want to be partner. Being here, seeing my dad…I don’t know.”
Batton had a heart after all. But even though she tried to steel herself against him, she couldn’t help but soften at the care in his voice.
Yet she didn’t soften too much. She was supposed to hate him, wasn’t she?
“How about you?” he said, expertly changing the subject.
“What about me?”
“The gas station. Are you happy there?”
They came to the end of the aisle, and Shelby took a right, expecting Batton to break away, but instead he stuck to her side. She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or happy for his presence.
“Happy at the gas station? I don’t know. It’s the family business and Nana loves it.”
“Not your passion. It never was.”
Her heart cracked in two that he remembered. She expected him to ask why she never left. That would’ve given her the chance to say, We were supposed to leave together. I couldn’t go without you.
“And you never left,” he added quietly.
She expected to bristle, but when it came right down to it, her anger didn’t flare like expected. “I stayed. I like Sugar Cove, and my grandmother needed me.”
“Like my family does now.” He sounded sad. “Eventually we’re all needed. I guess it just matters on whether or not we embrace that task or if we pawn it off on someone else.”
“I guess so.” She glanced over at him. Batton was looking straight ahead, but when she glanced over, his face tipped toward her. Her stomach flip-flopped and she ripped her gaze away, staring ahead as she turned down another aisle, him still beside her. “But you’re going back, right? You have to return because of the whole partner thing.”
“Yeah, I have to go back. I can’t stay gone forever. I’m burning up vacation days as it is coming here.”
“How much vacation do you have?”
“Three months.”
She nearly choked on literally nothing. “Three months?”
He rubbed the back of his neck again, a gesture she recalled that he only did when feeling embarrassed. “Like I said, trying to make partner requires a lot of sacrifice; taking vacations is one of them. But I’m still working, drawing plans, and calling clients while I’m here.”
“So, it’s not really a vacation,” she teased.
“With my dad the way he is, it wouldn’t be anyway.”
The sorrow in his voice nearly broke her heart. But as the first hint of the icy muscle melting, she steeled herself, and the depth of his betrayal rushed through her body like a tidal wave.
She grabbed the last item on her list. “That’s it for me. I’m going to check out now. It was…” Good catching up? Great to see him? She wasn’t ready to go there. “Have a nice day.”
As she turned to enter the checkout line, his voice stopped her once again. “Shelby?”
Her knees quaked. She’d forgotten how the sound of her name on his lips made her weak. She cleared her throat in a poor attempt to erase thoughts of him.
“Yes?”
“Would you…like to grab coffee sometime?”
Her fingers curled tighter around the bar of the shopping cart. Her mind screamed, Yes! Do it! But the frost crusting her heart said otherwise.
“No, I don’t think so,” she replied as she kept right on walking, straight into the open checkout line.