He releases a harsh chuckle. “I’ve had worse days.”
I don’t even know where to begin. My head is twisted all around, and my emotions are all over the place. I’m so damn angry with him, but I’m also so damn happy to see him. Hate and love merge in a bizarre combination, and I don’t know how to process it.
He stopped coming to Elizabeth Ann’s gravesite on her birthday, and Julien refuses to talk about him after some big fight they had, that he also wouldn’t tell me about. And Ryder…
“Where have you been?”
His large, calloused hands cover mine, the gunmetal gray of his gaze filled with so much sorrow. “In hell.”
Something’s not right. Years may separate us, but I still know him better than anyone.
“Come inside. I can make us some coffee, and we can talk.”
His palm is cold when he caresses my cheek. “Not yet. Soon, I promise.”
He can’t just show up out of the blue at my house at midnight, then walk away without telling me anything.
“I don’t believe your promises anymore,” I quietly reply.
Goose bumps scatter everywhere when he grazes a fingertip across my collarbone. I watch with bated breath as he lifts the locket dangling from its thin gold chain around my neck. He flicks it open and stares intently at the tiny photographs I keep inside—the one he put in there of us as kids and the one I added of the little butterfly girl statue that stands at our daughter’s grave.
Gently closing the locket, his thumb lightly brushes over her name engraved on the back. “Will you meet me tomorrow?”
No. Yes. I don’t know.
Too much is happening, and I can’t keep up. Fallon, and now Jayson. Two men from my past who have suddenly reappeared without warning. Fate must be laughing her ass off right now. She loves to play cruel games with my life.
I come to a decision I hope I don’t regret. “Our forest fort at one.”
He nods. “I’ll be there.”
My stomach drops when Fallon drives up on his Ducati. This is not good.
Jayson steps away from me and shoves his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. “I think it’s best I go.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say.
He stops on the bottom porch step and looks back at me. Curls of his dark mahogany hair fall across his brow. “Liz?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t trust him.”
Fallon sits motionless on his bike and watches Jayson as he walks to his car and gets in. The tug I feel in my chest when he drives off is like a heartstring being stretched to its limits, the ache spreading like a bruise. Grasping the porch railing, I slam my eyes shut and force air in and out of my lungs to ease the tightness. I thought I was prepared for the moment I would seeJayson again. I was wrong. And despite everything, despite the anger and the hurt, the part of my heart that will always be his still loves the boy who broke it.
Fallon remains on his bike, like he’s deciding whether to leave or to stay. I make the decision for him. Walking barefoot down the porch steps, the night dew clinging to the blades of grass dampens the soles of my feet and slicks between my toes.
“Why do I have the feeling that was thesomethingyou left to take care of?”
With lethal grace, Fallon dismounts from the saddle, removes his helmet, and shakes out his hair. “You okay?”
I almost laugh at that. I feel like I’m spinning in dizzying circles on an amusement ride that I just want to get off. “Not really. How did you know?”
I expect him to reply with his usual,“You know I have my ways,”so I’m a little surprised when he says, “Someone saw him at O’Reilly’s the other day. I had Xander track him down.”
The bar? “Is that where you found him tonight?”
“Yes.”
