The irony isn’t lost on me.
“Jesse?” Her voice floats up from downstairs, and I feel that familiar tightening in my chest. The same one I was fighting all those years ago when she left.
“Up here,” I call back, heading toward the stairs.
She’s standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at me with those green eyes that have haunted more dreams than I care to admit. Her hair’s longer now, falling in waves past her shoulders, and she’s wearing jeans that hug her curves in ways that should be illegal.
“Thanks for bringing that up,” she says, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. It’s a nervous habit she’s had since we were kids.
“No problem.” I stop a few steps from the bottom, causing us not to be too far apart. Big mistake. This close, I can smell her perfume—something expensive and floral that’s nothing like the cheap drugstore stuff she used to wear in high school.
“Truett!” The front door slams, and heavy footsteps echo through the house. “That damn cultivator’s acting up again. I need you to come take a look.”
It’s Dave, our foreman of the crop side of things. Good timing, because the tension between Aubree and me is thick enough to cut with a knife.
Truett appears from the kitchen, wiping grease off his hands with an old rag. “What’s it doing now?”
“Same thing as last month. Keeps jamming up on the left side.”
“All right, let me grab my tools.” Truett disappears back into the kitchen, then returns with his toolbox. He pauses, glancing between Aubree and me. “Don’t kill each other while I’m gone. Behave yourselves.”
If only he knew how loaded that statement is.
The door closes behind them, and suddenly the house feels too small. Aubree and I are alone for the first time since she left South Dakota.
“So,” she says, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “This is awkward.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s one word for it.”
She moves toward the living room, and I follow, keeping what I hope is a safe distance. She settles onto the couch, the same couch where I used to help her with her math homework while trying not to notice how her lips moved when she concentrated.
“What made you come back?” I ask, choosing the chair across from her instead of sitting beside her. Smart move, Jesse.
Her smile falters, and for a second, I see a crack in that polished exterior she’s been wearing since she got out of the truck. “I needed to lick my wounds, I guess. My life didn’t exactly work out the way I envisioned it.”
There’s pain in her voice, real pain, and my first instinct is to comfort her. But I hold back. I’ve learned the hard way that getting too close to Aubree Weber only leads to a hard cock and a feeling of being unsatisfied.
“Maybe you needed to be humbled,” I say, and immediately regret the harshness in my tone.
Her head snaps up, brown eyes flashing. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Before you left, Truett gave you everything you wanted to make up for your parents being gone. You were spoiled rotten, Aubree. You always have been.”
She stands up so fast the couch cushion bounces. “You don’t know anything about my life, Jesse. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“I know you left here to lick your wounds because I turned you down. I know the bright lights of Chicago were way too enticing for you to ignore them. I know you barely called or visited. I know Truett worried himself sick about you for years. He stayed here, along with me, killing himself to make sure you didn’t worry, while he took it all within himself.”
“That’s not fair, and you know it.” Her voice is rising, color flooding her cheeks. “I was eighteen years old. I wanted to see the world, experience things. I’d lost my parents, and they weren’t able to take that cruise they wanted to. They never got to visit New York City. Wanting to make memories before I die doesn’t make me a spoiled brat.”
“Doesn’t it?” I stand too, and suddenly we’re facing each other across the coffee table like opponents in a boxing ring. “You had everything handed to you on a silver platter, and it still wasn’t enough. We weren’t enough.”
“God, I hate that you think you know me so well.” She’s pacing now, hands gesturing wildly. “You think because we grew up together, because you’re Truett’s best friend, that gives you the right to judge every decision I’ve made?”
“I’m not judging…”
“Yes, you are!” She spins to face me, and there are tears in her eyes now. “You’ve been judging me since the day I left. Hell, you were judging me before I left. I could see it in your eyes that night…that night when I…”
She trails off, but I know exactly what night she’s talking about. Her eighteenth birthday. The night that everything changed between us.
