“You said Covington was cyber stalking.” Clayton nodded thoughtfully. “Was he watching your movements online?”
The question cut right to the heart of what made it so damn difficult to sit across the table from Clayton.
Her throat dried up. Cold clamminess broke out over her skin in a panic that had everything to do with her dream world and nothing to do with the handsome and decent man across from her.
“I—” She was at a loss for what to say. “Actually, Clay, do you mind if we catch up another time?” Her heart beat faster. She stood to leave before thinking how rude that would appear. “I’m sorry. I just remembered I was supposed to meet my friend Amy this morning. I don’t know where my head is today.”
“Let me walk you out—” He was already reaching for his guitar.
But Gabriella didn’t hear the rest. She’d fallen into dream mode—that place where the past and her fears mingled, growing larger than life—and she needed a breath of fresh air. She hadn’t experienced a panic attack like this in years. Shoving her way through the entrance to the Owl’s Roost, she nearly ran into a big, burly man carrying a toddler into the restaurant.
“Sorry,” she apologized, never slowing down.
The cold wind blasted over her face, tugging strands of her hair across her cheek and drying some of the dampness from her skin.
Pausing at the porch rail, she took big, gasping breaths of air into her lungs.
She would plan a private time to speak to Clayton Travers again. She hadn’t been emotionally prepared to see him this morning, and it was so early in the day she still had one foot in her unsettling dreams from the night before. But she was in Heartache to put the past to rest for good. Shewould see Jeremy Covington go to jail. And she’d share with Clay the truth about the conversations she’d thought she had with him over that summer. There was a chance she’d only been talking to him half the time she thought she had been messaging with him.
True, it all happened a long time ago. But she owed it to herself to find out how much of that online relationship Clay had participated in over those weeks she’d been falling for him—and how much of that time she’d been talking to Jeremy Covington. It was just one more step in the healing, and not anything to do with the fact that Clayton Travers still made her heart skip a beat.
It had beena long time since a woman had run from him.
Ten years, in fact. And the last perpetrator was the same as today’s—one Gabriella Chance.
Walking more sedately out of the Owl’s Roost, Clayton knew he was attracting stares. The people in the booths nearby were probably wondering what piece of crap man would send a woman sprinting for the door by herself. More than a little on edge by the time he made it through the exit, he was surprised to see Gabriella still on the front porch.
Her back to him, she gripped the rail so hard it made her shoulders and arms rigid. The late-autumn wind tossed a few strands of dark blond hair, her loose pants fluttering against her legs. As he neared, he could see she took deep breaths that lifted her whole chest, exhaling through her mouth like she was doing yoga breathing.
“I’m in a sticky social situation here,” he noted wryly, standing a few feet away and staring out over the parking lotthe same way she was doing. “Do I give you the space you seem to crave and walk past you? Or do I stop and try to be a gentleman because you seem distressed?”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked, her voice tinged with a dry sarcasm he hadn’t expected. She puffed out an audible breath.
“My dining companions don’t usually head for the exit like they’re setting a land speed record.” He kept it light, curious as hell what was going on with her but not wanting to push. He’d realized within seconds of seeing her again that he was still attracted. Time hadn’t faded her appeal in the least.
So it bothered him even more that she hadn’t wanted to linger after their shared meal.
They remained quiet for a moment as a young woman walked by, holding the arm of a stooped man shuffling a walker across the wooden plank floor.
“I think I’m having a recurrence of panic attacks since the Covington trial starts tomorrow,” she confided once the entrance closed behind the incoming restaurant patrons. “As much as I think seeing him go to jail will give me closure, it’s also stirring up some old fears. I didn’t sleep well last night. Not well at all.”
“That, I understand.” He moved closer without touching her, trying to offer the comfort of his presence without making her feel overwhelmed or crowded. “I’m staying in town long enough to meet with my biological father for the first time in years and it’s got me restless at night, too.”
“Is Pete still living close to Heartache?” She seemed to forget her troubles as he mentioned his own, her shoulders relaxing a bit when she turned to face him.
“I can’t believe you remember my loser father’s name.” He shook his head, surprised she would recall ancient conversations they’d had over the card games she insisted would help him with his math. “Pete is feeling the effects of cirrhosis by now, so maybe that’s got him sentimental that he wants to see me. But he lives just outside the town line heading toward Franklin.”
She nodded, her golden brown hair lifted by the chilly breeze. “You know that’s where the trial is being held? In Franklin?”
“Yes. Your brother filled me in while I was keeping an eye on his fiancée. I plan to sit in during Heather Finley’s testimony. Zach seemed to think it would give her courage to see friendly faces in the courtroom.”
Besides, he had a vested interest in seeing that bastard Covington behind bars. The sick creep had hurt the girl he’d started to care about, someone he’d wanted to know better. Gabriella had just started flirting with him, warming to the idea of seeing him, when she’d disappeared.
While Clayton had moved on, dated plenty of other women, he’d never forgotten about her. And being in this town again had a way of bringing the past back to life.
“That’s kind of you.” She finally looked at him, an admiring light burning in her eyes, an expression he recalled from their old conversations. When the rest of the school had been quick to look his way as a potential suspect for any misdeeds since he was the newest Hasting foster kid, and therefore “troubled,” Gabriella had given him the benefit of the doubt.
“I want to support Sam, too. It sounds like he put his whole life on hold for a while to pursue the guy, even before he moved back here to become Sheriff.”
