“Wanted to what?”
“Know you.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you. Figured tonight was as good a time as any.”
She stared at me for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression. Then she shook her head slowly, a soft laugh escaping her lips.
“You’re not what I expected,” she said.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Someone who grunts more than talks, maybe.” She grinned. “You’ve got this whole brooding mountain-man thing going on. I figured you were the strong, silent type.”
“I am the strong, silent type. Usually.”
“So what’s different about tonight?”
I looked at her—really looked at her. The warm light from the overhead bulbs caught the gold in her hair, making her skin glow. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t what made it hard to breathe. It was the way she was looking back at me, like she genuinely wanted to know the answer.
“You,” I said simply. “You’re what’s different.”
Her breath caught. For a moment, neither of us spoke. The jukebox switched to a slower song—lazy guitar, a voice full of longing.
“I should tell you something,” she said finally. “About why I reacted the way I did when Preston walked in.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” She wrapped both hands around her glass, like she needed something to hold onto. “I told you we dated in Charlotte, and that’s true. What I didn’t tell you is that my parents basically pushed us together. His family runs in the same circles as mine. Old money. Country clubs. The whole thing.”
I nodded, waiting.
“On paper, Preston was everything I was supposed to want. Stable. Successful. Safe.” She said the last word like it tasted bitter. “And he was nice enough, I guess. But I never felt…anything. Not the way you’re supposed to feel about someone you’re dating.”
“So you ended it.”
“I tried.” She let out a humorless laugh. “But Preston doesn’t really do endings. He kept showing up at my work. Night after night, he’d just sit at the bar and watch me. Not threatening—just there. Waiting for me to change my mind.”
My hands curled into fists under the table. “That’s not okay.”
“No. It’s not.” She met my eyes. “Between him and my mother constantly asking when I was going to settle down, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. So I found a job listing for a bartender in a mountain town I’d never heard of, packed my car, and left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” A real smile crossed her face this time. “Best decision I ever made. The air up here is different. The peopleare different. I feel like I can finally figure out who I am without everyone else telling me who I should be.”
I understood that more than she knew. I’d come to Wildwood Valley for similar reasons—a fresh start, a chance to be something other than what the military had made me.
“I get it,” I said. “The needing to start over.”
She tilted her head, studying me with new curiosity. “You?”
“Army. Twelve years.” I took a sip of bourbon, letting the burn settle before I continued. “When I got out, everyone back home expected me to be the same guy who’d left. But I wasn’t. Couldn’t pretend to be, either.”
“So you came here.”
“So I came here.” I met her eyes. “Found the crew. Found a place where nobody knew the old me, so nobody expected me to be him.”
Something softened in her expression. “And who are you now?”
The question caught me off guard. Most people didn’t ask. Most people didn’t care. They saw the beard, the scowl, the shoulders, and made their assumptions.
