?Chapter One
?Taryn
Danny Chambers wasback in town.
The loud rumble of his vintage Mustang set my heart racing as it turned onto the street in front of my parents’ house. Glancing down at the worn cutoffs and ratty Balefire T-shirt, which I’d thrown on before I came out on the front porch to read, I groaned. It had been seven months since we last saw each other, longer since we’d spent any real time together, and this outfit would be his first impression of me after all that time?Gah!
Couldn’t be helped.
As he pulled up to the house and cut the motor, I shook my head. What did it matter what I had on? He’d pay about as much attention to my clothes as he would to a new tablecloth. I could be wearing a lace string bikini, and Danny wouldn’t notice.
Five seconds after we met when he’d started his senior year at Central Valley High, he’d friend zoned me, and he’d kept me in the friend zone for the past five years.
I gritted my teeth at the ridiculous way my heart somersaulted in my chest when he stepped from his car and pushed his aviator sunglasses on top of his head.
“Hey, T! You’re home!” The smile that broke over his face lit me up like sunshine.
Pathetic.
Even more pathetic? I’d made a visit home to see my parents for the weekend because Danny had mentioned in one of his recent emails he’d be discharged at the end of June. I could have waited until the Fourth of July to come home, but that would have meant he’d be back for nearly ten days before I saw him. I couldn’t wait that long.
God, I was beyond pitiful.
“Yeah. I needed a break from slinging lattes.” Sliding a bookmark into the romance novel I’d barely started, I set it on the patio table beside a glass of iced tea and stood as he bounded up the stairs to the front porch.
“It’s so good to see you, T.” Wrapping me in a brotherly hug, Danny picked me up and swung me in a full circle before setting me down. With a laugh, I swatted at him even as I did my damnedest to sneak a noseful of his delicious scent. He smelled of the berry-citrus body wash he always used, sunshine, and clean sweat. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and stay there for a week.
Something flashed in his eyes, and for a weird second, I had the idea he didn’t want to let me go either. Then he dropped his arms and stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and I dismissed that absurd idea.
“You’re home for good now, huh?” I slid my hands into the back pockets of my shorts and rocked back on my bare heels. “No more jetting off around the world to save it?”
He snorted. “You’re hilarious, Taryn. But yeah, I passed my ETS physical with flying colors.”
I shot him a look from beneath my brows. “Of course you did.”
Grinning, he said, “My CO signed my honorable discharge papers, and at twenty-four hundred hours day before yesterday, I pointed that baby north”—he gestured with his thumb at his car—“and headed home.”
Furrowing my brow, I asked, “So you’ve been home for a day and you’re just now hitting my mom up for cookies?”
His tone took on a serious note. “Is that what you think—the only reason I come around here is for your mom’s to-die-for chocolate chip cookies?”
“Yep. That and her dinners.” I shot him a smug grin. “Since I’m only home for today, she’s cookingmyfavorite meal tonight. You’ll have to wait for yours.”
His face fell. “You’re leaving tomorrow?” Then he rallied. “Guess that means I can talk Mrs.H. into cooking pork chops tomorrow night.”
As though he’d conjured her with her name, Mom stepped onto the porch with a glass of iced tea in her hand. “I thought I heard voices out here.” She set the drink beside mine on the table. Beaming at Danny, she opened her arms. “Welcome home! It’s permanent this time, isn’t it?”
Stepping into her embrace, he laughed and said, “Yes and no.”
Mom held him at arm’s length. “Explain.”
He sent a grin in my direction. “I’m not going back to the Air Force, but I am leaving town.”
At his pronouncement, my stomach bottomed out. He’d only been back for a minute and he already had a foot out the door.
“I’m walking onto the Wildcats football team. Fall camp starts the Monday after the Fourth, so I’m heading to Mountain State then.” He slid me a sly side-eye, and it took everything in me not to choke or do a happy dance.
Clapping her hands, Mom turned her cheesiest Mom smile onto me. “That’s wonderful! I had no idea. Did you know about this, Sweet Pea?”
