With the tiny thrill she got whenever someone asked about the ring, Holly held out her hand, the streetlights sparking off the diamond. Grace gave an awed inhale, holding Holly’s fingers and rotating her hand to get all the best angles.
“Oh, that’s beautiful.” She smiled over her shoulder at Colt, who stood watching, hands in his pockets, navy blazer flared over his wrists. “You did good.”
He lifted one hand in silent acknowledgement. Andy laughed and slapped his back. “And she didn’t laugh and turn you down like the first time you asked her out.”
Colt’s slight chuckle hung on the chilly air in a puff of white and dissipated. “She did not.”
Holly’s brows twisted down. What was Andy nattering about?
Andy punched Colt’s arm. “Let’s hit the road. I’m hungry.”
They loaded into their respective vehicles – really, it would have made more sense to ride together, but she guessed having two was good if something happened with Andy and Grace’s kids – and she slanted a speculative glance at Colt while she fastened her seatbelt and he rounded the hood to the driver’s side.
“Colton.” She half-turned in his seat while he clasped his own belt and fired the engine. He rested his left wrist on the wheel, lighting glinting off the thin gold rim of his dress watch.
“Yes, ma’am?” He checked the street and pulled out.
“Did you lie to your friend and tell him I turned you down?”
Even from the side, she could see his forehead wrinkle. He half-looked at her, a flick of his gaze accompanied by a slight shrug. “You did turn me down.”
Her mouth fell open. “I did not.”
“You did.” Shaking his head on a rueful chuckle, he slowed at the stop sign. He lifted a finger from the wheel in emphasis. “Senior year. Homecoming. I asked and you turned me down.”
Lips parted, she stared at him. He didn’t mean . . . “What are you talking about?”
“Mr. Davis’s room, a couple of weeks before the dance. We were working on that Hardy poem about the couple breaking up by the pond, and you were talking about who was going with whom to the dance. I said—”
“We should go together.” The words fell in a horrified murmur as the memory unfolded in her brain. Lord, she could see it, their desks pushed together in the back corner of Mr. Davis’s room. The room had been cold because Mr. Davis was hot-natured. Holly had shivered, and Colt had shrugged out of his letterman’s jacket, passed it over. She’d donned it, wrapping herself in the clean warmth of his smell, wishing so hard for what she didn’t think she could have that his offhand “We should go” had infuriated her, made her snappish.
He’d beenserious?
“And you laughed, told me not to be stupid and to get back to work.” He shrugged, expressionless in the glow from the dash. “So I did.”
“Oh, my Lord.” She stared at the cut-from-stone lines of his face. “You were serious.”
“I was.”
She covered her mouth, horrified. He’d ended up asking Jada, the beginning of his relationship with her, and Holly had gone with Mackey, a last minute hanging-out-as-friends arrangement to save face. “Colt.”
“It’s fine.” He lifted a hand between them. “And it worked out, right?”
“Yes.” It did, but the memory, the missed opportunity, made her want to cry. If she’d entertained the idea her impossible crush was reciprocated . . . what if she’d said yes? “Colton, that makes me sad.”
He darted a look at her, a hint of concern flashing over his face. “Why?”
“Well, because . . .” Her throat aching, she fiddled with the end of her loose braid. Because if she’d let herself believe back then, things might have been so different. No heartbreak over Scott. No nightmare with Allison Barnett that cost him and Tick – well, all of them, really – so much. “Things could be different.”
Hooking a wrist over the wheel, he frowned. “Maybe not in a good way. I’d probably still have ended up being a mess because Mama was having such a hard time back then. D didn’t have time to spend on me because he was so wound up in what she needed, which is okay. I wasn’t easy for Jada all the time, and I sure wasn’t easy enough for Laurel.”
“You’re killing my fantasy that we’d have been another Del and Barb or David and Lorraine.” Her mouth twisted into a slight moue. “Andy and Grace.”
His snort exploded in the quiet cab. “You do not want us to be Andy and Grace, believe me.”
“Why not?” She waved at Andy’s headlights behind them. “They’re adorable.”
“Yeah,now.” He relaxed into his seat. “You weren’t around when he was an immature dumbass. Thank You, Lord, he finally grew up.”
