Across the room, the fire department heckled the sheriff deputies from the dartboard corner. The rivalry between the sheriff’s department and the firehouse was as old as Northfield itself. Mostly it played out over pool, darts, and the summer baseball league, where things got heated enough that Lily had once seen Cap throw his glove.
She knew many of the people here tonight. She’d grown up with some of the younger guys, gone to school with their sisters, danced at a few of their weddings with Tucker. They were good guys, and they were not subtle about watching out for her like their own kid sister.
Most of the friends she and Tucker had once shared had reached out over the last month to let her know they supported her, and what they thought of Tucker and the version of the story that he was trying to sell. At first, he’d tried telling people she’d gotten cold feet and left him at the altar, humiliated and heartbroken. That Lily was the flaky, sensitive one. Too dramatic to commit, instead leaving him behind to face everyone.
In Tucker’s version, he was the victim and Lily was a liar who’d just lit her life on fire on a crazy whim.
It wasn’t until the photo had leaked that the cracks in his story began to show, because it was hard to play the victim when the whole town had seen him with her best friend, virtually naked in a hotel room. There was no coming back from that.
But the flip side of the coin was that now everyone was watching out for her.
Small towns were fun.
Lily pasted a smile on her face and turned back to Bradley, ignoring the looks and the way her stomach growled. If she was lucky, Evie would save some leftovers of the Marry Me chicken. Strangely, she wasn’t hungry right at the moment.
Bradley wiped his mouth on a napkin, grinning across the table at her. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. His mother had told Lily privately that he just hadn’t found anyone meaningful who he clicked with yet, but Lily suspected there might be a few other reasons Bradley had trouble getting a date.
“Speaking of risks, did I tell you about that time I thought I could handle pepper jack? Disaster.” He leaned forward excitedly, and Lily let herself tune out.
She felt him before she saw him.
A flicker of sharp, bright energy that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck tingle and tiny pricks of awareness skim down her spine.
Her gaze drifted back toward the entrance and the man standing there, shaking the snow off his big sheepskin jacket and ever-present baseball hat.
Oh God. He was here.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. This was Northfield—everyone ran into everyone, eventually. They’d crossed paths here and there since the cabin. And yet, like always, the second she spotted him, her cheeks went hot. Damn her fair, redheaded complexion, giving her away like a human mood ring.
Rush Callahan filled the doorway, pausing to survey the room with that quiet, alert energy that made people shift out of his way without realizing they’d done it. A mix between awareness and protective watchfulness that her body automatically responded to.
A cheer went up almost instantly, rowdy applause and whistles from the deputies and firefighters clustered around the bar, and Rush’s expression went carefully blank.
“There he is! Hometown hero!” someone shouted enthusiastically, followed by whistles and claps on his broad shoulders, along with several calls to buy him a drink. Ever since the accident, Rush had been elevated to hero status in the eyes of Northfield, even though Lily knew he didn’t see it that way. He’d saved Chloe Whitmore, after all, swimming out into the canal that cold November night and pulling her from the wreckage when no one else could have. The fact that he hadn’t been able to save Caroline didn’t diminish their admiration. If anything, it deepened their respect for the mysterious, humble sheriff who hated the spotlight.
Rush ducked his head slightly, politely, and if she wasn’t watching him carefully, she would have missed the way his jaw tightened and how his smile was fixed on his face. Her gaze trailed after him as he moved through the room, nodding to old friends and stopping to say a few words here and there, but even surrounded by the noise and welcoming in the bar, there was something about him that seemed… lonely.
The sight tugged at her heart.
He stopped to greet Amber and Theo, who also happened to be the mayor of Northfield. Rush wasn’t in uniform tonight. When he shrugged off his jacket, the dark Henley underneath clung to the heavy muscles in his shoulders and chest. His jeans rode low on his hips, worn and soft and faded in all the right places, and when he leaned a forearm on the bar to order, muscles flexing under his swarthy skin, it was honestly just unfair.
He looked rugged and sexy and, unlike her date, not afflicted with a single dietary issue.
She let her eyes linger a few seconds longer, wondering idlyif anyone else in this town fully understood that the sheriff of Northfield was, in fact, a walking sex fantasy. Then she raised her eyes—to find him looking straight at her. His lips curved just slightly, and he stared back. Dark. Steady. Knowing.
Busted.
A rush of heat flooded her cheeks so fast she was almost dizzy with it. She whipped her head back around like she’d just been caught staring at the sun.
“So,” Bradley was saying, gleefully dragging his potato skin through the sour cream, “you ever try oat cheese? It’s surprisingly moist.”
Kill me now.
She could still feel it. The weight of Rush’s gaze and the hum of chemistry that had about taken her out at the cabin.
“Are you gonna eat that last one?” Bradley asked, pointing at the plate between them.
Lily blinked. “You can have it.”
