It was frustrating.
She unlocked her front door and stepped into her house—only to stop.
The hall light was on. She never left the hall light on. She never leftanythingon. She was almost overly obsessive about turning everything off because electricity was expensive.
Quietly, she slipped her camera bag to the floor and opened a drawer in the hallway table. Under the false bottom, she lifted her pistol. Then, slowly, she inched into the living room.
“Hello?”
She was just nearing the kitchen when a figure stepped in front of the island.
Her heart stopped.
Colt.
His familiar dark eyes bore into her, and he seemed to take up all the space. He was tall at six three, and right now he looked every one of those inches.
Suddenly, she couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. All the walls she’d built to protect herself started to crumble. It felt like no time had passed at all. Like the year of no kisses, no late-night conversations, just disappeared. He looked exactly the same,and her heart ached to cross the space between them and wrap her arms around him. To let him hold her.
Her fingers tightened around the grip of the gun. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Cricket. I’ve missed you.”
Her heart squeezed. She hadn’t heard that nickname in so long. He’d said he used it because she was small but fierce…but she didn’t feel so fierce anymore.
“What are you doing in my house?”
One side of his mouth lifted, and yeah, she knew exactly what he was thinking. That it wasn’t her house, it wastheirhouse. Theirhome. The home they’d chosen together. The home they’d wanted to raise a family in.
“I couldn’t stay away any longer.” He stepped toward her.
Air soared into her lungs. She’d been avoiding as many public spaces as possible because she knew that the second she saw him, she’d feel exactly what she was feeling right now. An impossibly heavy yearning. The feeling of close never quite being close enough.
He took another step toward her. “Can you put the pistol down, Cricket?”
Shit. She hadn’t even realized she was still pointing it.
She lowered the gun. “Fine. But you don’t touch me.”
His brows flickered, and he seemed to consider that for a moment. “I’m just here to talk.”
Talk? They’d never been good at just talking. Touching was their love language. It had been since high school.
“About what?” But she knew exactly what.
“Us.”
How many times had she played over this conversation in her head? A million times. And every one of them had ended differently. “You didn’t sign the divorce papers.”
“Did you expect me to?”
No. The word was a whisper in her mind.
“You wouldn’t answer my calls,” he said softly. “You wouldn’t respond to my texts. I had to resort to checking in with other people to make sure you were okay.”
She frowned—but then it hit her. “Aunt Pam.”
“And your brother. I hate that I couldn’t be here to check on you myself.”
