Chapter 4

She worried it would be tense as they drove to the edge of town, but instead, he pointed out what might have changed since her last visit Alex had not lived next door to her parents when she’d last been home, so she hadn’t seen him, really, since high school. She twisted in her seatbelt so she could look at his profile while he drove. The sky was darkening and looked like someone had taken gel pens in red, orange, and yellow and streaked them across the clouds. His dark hair was spiked messily like Brad Pitt’s before he’d gone grunge.

“What brought you home this time?” he asked, turning the music down a bit. The lyrics sat in her chest, heavy like lead: “Going down, but no one knew, I was losing altitude.”

“Kate wanted help with the center, particularly with fund raising. Plus, she’s graduating soon. Mia was just born, and I wanted to meet her, and both of those things aligned perfectly with me getting fired, so it seemed like fate.”

“You got fired?”

He glanced her way before looking back at the road. He held his hands at ten and two the way she’d been taught in driving school and never done since. He was so by-the-book that she couldn’t help but smile.

“I did.”

“And?”

“And it sucks, but I’d rather lose my job than sleep my way to the top,” she answered casually, switching the radio station.

He slammed on the breaks. “What?” His tone was vicious. She checked behind them, but there were no other cars on the road. She looked over at him, and though his face looked calm, his eyes were fierce.

“Your boss tried to make you sleep with him?”

“He suggested it, yes. Um … we should keep driving. Unless you can’t see through the haze of mad in your eyes.” She laughed and went back to switching stations.

“I’m sorry, but how is this funny?”

“It’s not funny, but it’s cute, and a little bit sweet, that you look so mad about it. Welcome to the big, bad world, sheriff. Some people aren’t nice.”

He was quiet for the rest of the short drive to the diner she remembered well. It held both good and bad memories for her. She bit her lip as they parked, and she thought of how the bad memories seemed more trivial from her adult perspective while the good ones seemed shinier than they probably were. He turned in his seat after taking his keys from the ignition and leaned over to pop the latch on her seatbelt.

“I’m well aware of the realities of the world. What I don’t like, other than some jackass trying to get in your pants, is that you’re so flippant about it. It’s not okay. Does your family know?” He spoke carefully, slowly, with measured patience.

“You’re right. It’s not okay. But there’s no use getting worked up about it. And no, I didn’t tell anyone.”

She covered his hand with hers and smiled at him. He was so easy to smile at and to be with. Like coming home to an old friend. A friend who was an exceptionally good kisser.

His hand tensed before he turned it so their palms were touching. “I hope you kicked him in the—”

“No. I did not. Because even though the world seems vast and huge, the photography world is small, and I like what I do. I’d like to continue doing it. And kicking anyone anywhere isn’t the way to make a name for myself.”

“You have a name,” he said quietly, leaning forward and putting his forehead against hers. She held her breath, wondering if he’d kiss her again. He pulled back a split second later, got out of his truck, and came around the hood to open her door for her.

She looked up at him for a moment as she stood in the space between his arm and the open door.

“You’re very sweet,” she murmured before he lowered his arm and they made their way into the diner he’d eaten at more times than he could count. He wasn’t sure if sweet was something he wanted to be in her eyes; it seemed a little too close to “such a good friend.”

“I haven’t been here since I was about twenty.”

“Nothing has changed. Still the best burgers in the county.”

They moved through Calvin’s Diner, known to the locals as Cal’s, waving hello to the few people that sat in the booths and at tables. The faded tabletops and vinyl seat covers gave it a retro feel. To Alex, it was another home. He’d hung out there with buddies after games and brought dates there. He had eaten many breakfasts, both before and after a long shift, at the rectangular, white Formica counter with the padded-top, swivel stools. He waved to Danielle, who had waitressed there for about five years now, and felt a moment of awkwardness when he saw Lucy’s eyes widen. Perhaps he should have thought this through a little more.

“You bring all your dates here? So your ex-girlfriend can check them out and approve?” she asked curtly while sliding into the corner booth.

Definitely should have rethought the game plan. Or at least had a game plan.

“No. And she was never my girlfriend. Just a girl I … never mind. She wasn’t my girlfriend.”

He gave an awkward smile when Danielle came to the table, her Cal’s uniform looking tighter than appropriate. The pocket of the pink apron over the yellow, collared dress was full of pencils and notepads. Her sandy brown hair was pulled up into a haphazard bun. She was still attractive but looked like the years hadn’t been kind to her. Having been the responder to most of her domestic abuse calls, he knew first hand that they hadn’t.

“How you doing, sheriff?” she drawled, her eyes on Lucy.

“I’m good, Danielle. You remember Lucy?”

“Course I do. Hard to forget any of the Aarons sisters. How are you, Lucy?”

“I’m well. You?” Lucy fidgeted with the menu, not meeting Danielle’s gaze.

“Not bad, I suppose. Can I get you some drinks?”

Danielle took their orders of cheeseburgers and fries with a couple of colas and left the table. Lucy was folding her napkin into tiny squares. He reached across the table and put his hand over hers. He didn’t like how good it felt to touch her—it would be so easy to get used to touching her. She hadn’t been home two full days yet and here he was, in over his head again. Drowning in Lucy. Good thing he knew how to swim.

“You okay? Did you and Danielle have some sort of rivalry that never made the rumor mill?” he teased.

Her lips firmed and she kept her hand still under his.

“No. No rivalry. I’m fine. Their burgers better be as good as I remember, because I’m starving.”

“I should have cooked for you. Next time?”

He waited until she realized he was asking for another chance before he smiled. Thankfully, the smile that warmed her face actually met her eyes.

“As long as you cook better than I do.”

“You’d have to cook for me first so I’d have a frame of reference.”

He stretched his legs under the table, essentially caging her feet between his just as Danielle came back with their sodas. She set them down with a tight smile, turned away, took a couple of steps, and then stopped.

“Lucy,” she said in a quiet voice when she turned around.

Lucy looked at her as something unspoken passed between the women, a look that made Alex’s insides feel like they’d been doused in ice water. Neither said anything, but Danielle’s face held a sadness he had not seen before—regret. Lucy bit her bottom lip. The bell over the door rang, and new customers laughed their way inside. Danielle nodded, even though nothing had been said, and went to say hello to the couple that had just entered.

“What was that?” Alex asked, sitting up and leaning forward on his crossed arms. Lucy’s eyes looked close to watery, and she still held her bottom lip tightly in her teeth.

“Lucy.”

“Nothing. Sometimes the past is better off left alone.”

Since he’d had the same thought earlier that evening, he let it go. She switched the topic to her photography and started telling him about the village she’d been staying in. Her face became animated when she spoke of her work, and he lost the thread of what she was saying by getting caught up in her smile, her voice, the way her eyes widened when she talked about the changes she had witnessed. He cringed inwardly when he realized he was hanging on her every word. He was a grown man, yet one day with her home and he reverted to a lovesick kid. Alex had dated plenty of women so he knew he should have a little more…game. But none of those women had been Lucy.

Lucy waved her fingers in front of his face, laughing as she pulled him from his thoughts.

“What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, sheriff?”

Danielle dropped their food off and asked if they needed anything else. She hesitated again and looked right at Lucy.

“It would make me feel better if I apologized,” Danielle said quietly, leaning over the table slightly.

“That’s a lousy reason to apologize for anything, isn’t it? To make yourself feel better,” Lucy answered, reaching for the ketchup.

“Maybe it is. But it doesn’t make it any less true. I’m sorry, Lucy.”

Lucy poured ketchup on her plate and then handed the bottle to Alex without meeting his eyes.

“Thank you. Apology accepted,” Lucy finally replied, looking up at Danielle, her lips firmed and her eyes revealing nothing. Danielle nodded and left their bill on the table. Lucy bit into her burger and sighed in pleasure, distracting Alex for a moment while he watched her, trying to figure her out.

The burger was delicious, but it was hard to swallow past the lump in her throat. Humiliation had a flavor of its own, and the rancid taste of it was making her regret taking such a large bite. Her eyes stung as she grabbed her pop to wash down her food.

“Lucy,” Alex said her name as though she was a child that had just told a completely obvious fib.

“Good burger. Just like I remember.”

He bit into his and eyed her from across the table. She didn’t want to look down. She met his gaze and challenged him to push her further. She wondered if he thought she’d talk first. Like maybe he thought his gaze could break her like a perp.

“I’m tougher than you,” she blurted. He laughed. Not at her, but still.

“Are you coming up with ways to prove that?”

“No.” She sulked, feeling stupid. “I just know you’re trying to get me to fess up, and it won’t happen. Your cop glare won’t work on me.”

“My cop glare? Jesus, what kind of T.V. do you watch? If they say ‘fess up’ on the shows you’re watching, maybe you should rethink them,” he chortled, taking another bite of his burger.

She did the same and they passed the rest of the meal engaged in an amusing staring contest. When they finished, he dropped some bills onto the table and they walked out of the diner to what Lucy was sure was the sound of the gossip mill hard at work. He opened the door for her, and she hopped up into his truck. Slipping behind the wheel, he turned the key in the ignition, gave her a sweet smile, and started to drive without a word.

“Where are we going?” she asked when he turned right instead of left and they wound their way farther out of town.

“Oh, you’re talking to me again?” he laughed.

She frowned and went back to silence, using the opportunity to stare out the window. It didn’t matter where she had been—the beauty of Angel’s Lake always astounded her. There was a purity here that she hadn’t found anywhere else. She looked over at Alex when he parked in a makeshift, gravel parking lot. Getting out of the car before he could reach her side, she arched her eyebrows at him. He chuckled and took her hand, leading her down a narrow walkway. Just past a small footbridge, they walked through a cluster of heavily leaved trees, and on the other side of them, she lost a small piece of her heart. Or perhaps, found it.

“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me to bring my camera?” she gasped.

She felt like she was sitting in the middle of a colored Ansel Adams print. They were surrounded by trees as they stood at the base of the mountains, water rippling over rocks below them. She could hear the steady flow of it like background music. They stood on a worn foot deck that might have, at some point, been part of the bridge they had just stepped down from.

“Sometimes you don’t need a camera for the picture to stay in your head,” he commented quietly, standing so his side was brushing hers, their fingers touching. “I don’t have any pictures of you, and I’ve never been able to get you out of my mind.”

She turned to face him even though he stood staring at the water. She put her hand on his forearm. It was solid, like him, and warm. Also like him.

“What are you talking about?”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned so they were face-to-face.

“Do you remember when we met? I was in the middle of a fist fight in sixth grade.”

“I remember you being in a fight. I remember getting in the middle of it. I don’t remember who or why.”

“It was Davey Morgan. He was a punk-ass bully who had been spouting off since I moved in with my dad. One day he sucker punched me, and I let him have it.”

“I hated that guy. Last I heard, he was living in a rundown shack selling homemade whiskey. Or drinking it,” she recollected with a frown.

“Probably both. I tossed him in jail a few times a couple years ago for drunk and disorderly. Haven’t seen him for a long time, but I wouldn’t doubt the stories. Anyway,” he shrugged, pulled his hands out of his pockets and taking her hand before he continued. “You rushed over just as I was about to kick him in the ribs. I was so mad I couldn’t see anything else. But I saw you. You came right up to me, grabbed my wrist, and turned me to face you. You put your hand on my chest.”

He placed it there now and her heart ricocheted in response. She stepped closer to him.

“How do you remember this?”

“Some things stay with you. Define you. Change something inside you. You leaned in really close and told me he wasn’t worth it. You kept your hand on my chest, just like this, looked me straight in the eye, and told me he wasn’t worth it but I was. That I was better than that. Better than him.”

“Looks like I was a pretty good judge of character even at twelve,” she smiled, drawn in by the memory, by him.

“Maybe. But it was the first time somebody had made me feel worth anything in so long. That sounds dramatic, but it’s true. You made me feel like I mattered.”

“You did. You do.”

“You told the principal that he’d called you a white-trash whore and I was defending your honor. I never even got suspended,” he reminded her.

She smiled, not sure if she remembered authentically or because he was filling in the gaps for her.

“Huh. Looks like I was a quick thinker, too,” she laughed.

He put his hand on her arm and rubbed it up and down, sending shivers up her back despite the warmth of the evening. Linking his fingers with hers, he started walking back in the direction they had come.

“You were. But the point is, that moment made me step back and think about who I was and who I wanted to be.”

“That’s giving an awful lot of power to a twelve-year-old girl.”

“Maybe. But from that moment on, I knew two things: one, I didn’t want to be a dickhead like Davey.”

“And two?”

He stopped at his truck. She could still hear the water and promised herself that she’d come back to take pictures.

“And two, if I ever got the chance, I’d tell you how much that moment mattered to me. So I’m telling you now. And saying thank you, I guess.”

“You’re welcome. Though I think your thank you is misplaced.”

“See? No, it’s not. That’s part of why I’m telling you this.”

He pulled her past the passenger side door and released her hand to open the tailgate. Before she could stop him, he picked her up under the arms and lifted her to sit on the truck so he could stand between her legs.

“You’re worth it,” he said seriously, his hands resting on her thighs. They were mostly covered by her cargo shorts, but the gentle grip of his fingers still caused a nervous distraction in the pit of her stomach.

“What?”

“When I needed to hear it, you told me and you made sure I listened. You told me I mattered, and now I’m returning the favor and telling you right back that you matter. Not your name, or your job, or anything else. You.”

She wasn’t sure why she felt like crying. He was in her space, his eyes locked on hers. His words took away some of the ache that she hadn’t realized was residing just under her ribcage.

“I think you’re telling me wrong,” she whispered, trying to ignore Kate’s ever-present nagging voice that told her not to do this, not to go where she wanted to be. Not to mess something else up.

“What?”

She took his hand, brought it up to rest on her heart, and then covered his large hand with her small ones. His breathed hitched and his eyes widened. A tremor traveled up her spine and ended in her shoulders.

“Say it again.”

“For the love of God, Lucy. Are you trying to kill me?” he shook his head with a wry smile on his lips. She tightened her legs on his hips and waited.

He leaned in, close enough that she could feel his breath, warm like the air around them.

“You matter, Lucy Aarons. You’re worth something. Worth so much.”

She tried to bite the inside of her cheek to stymie the tears, but she knew it didn’t quite work when she felt one slipping. His cupped her jaw with his free hand and began to close the small space between them.

“So are you,” she whispered.

As he kissed her, as she let herself tumble into the seduction and sweetness of his mouth on hers and ignored the voice telling her she was right and he was wrong. That he deserved better. For just this moment, she wanted what he said to be true. She pulled him closer and let herself believe it, for now.