Crap.
Suddenly, Ethan was walking beside her. “We never finished that conversation about grabbing a coffee.”
“You really want to catch up over a coffee?”
He frowned at her like the question was ridiculous. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He had to know all the reasons. But maybe he wanted this because, for now, they were living in the same town. Because they needed to coexist. Which they did.
She wet her lips. “Okay, how about?—”
A car door opened a few yards ahead, and Maggie stiffened at the sight of the woman who stepped out.
“Maggie.” The woman’s voice was like nails against a chalkboard.
“Lilith.” She hadn’t said that name in so long.
Her aunt closed the distance between them. She looked up at Ethan. “Hi, Ethan.”
“Hi.” His voice was short and sharp. There was no warmth. But then, he’d never liked her because of how she’d treated Maggie.
Lilith looked back at Maggie, and she wasn’t sure why, but some of that work she’d done on herself—on her self-esteem, her confidence, on rewiring her brain to accept that shewasdeserving of her place in the world—began to slip.
As if Ethan knew, like he felt it in her, he inched closer, and that small warmth from his body was the only thing that kept her steady.
6
If there was one woman in this world who Ethan couldn’t stand, one woman he despised, it was Lilith Sinclair. It was taking everything in him, every scrap of self-restraint, to keep the hostility off his face.
He’d barely seen Lilith since getting back to Deep River. Now, standing here, watching her look at Maggie with glassy eyes filled with contempt, like Maggie was a bitter aftertaste, he wished Lilith wasn’t in this town at all.
Lilith straightened the strap of the bag on her shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve moved back,” Maggie said softly.
Lilith’s eyes widened. “For good?”
Why did she say it like that? Like Maggie didn’t belong in her own hometown?
Maggie lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe for now. Maybe for good.”
Lilith’s lips thinned. “What about your flight-attending job?”
“I quit.”
Her aunt made a smalltsksound that could only be interpreted as disapproving.
Fuck this.
He slipped an arm around Maggie’s waist. The fact that she didn’t react proved how in-her-own-head she was. “We’ll see you later, Lilith.”
Lilith frowned. “Are you two?—”
“We’ll see you later.” He moved to tug Maggie around the older woman when Lilith looked back at her.
“We should have tea. After all, we have eleven years to catch up on, and you never did get those things you were supposed to take that night.”
They hadn’t spoken in eleven years?
