“What are you doing here?” The question hung in the air and felt stupid in his ears. He had a million things he could ask her—where had she been? What had she been doing? Was she here to stay?—yet what was she doingherewas what came out.
He traced the color of her light brown eyes, eyes that were so achingly familiar they felt like his.
She looked the same. But also different. The years had done nothing to detract from her beauty. If anything, they’d amplified it. Looking at her had always felt like a gut punch. Like a blow to the midsection he couldn’t breathe through.
“I, um, moved back for a bit.”
The soft velvet of her voice wove itself inside him. He had to turn her words over in his head a couple of times, force himself to focus, to make sense of them.
She was living here. In the same town. The woman he’d loved for so much of his life, the woman who’d ripped his heart out in one pull.
He closed his hands into fists to stop from reaching out and touching her, as if needing the confirmation that she was really there. And fuck, he was trying not to blink, because she’d disappear. Vanish. Like she had all those years ago.
He should be angry at her. For ending things. For cutting him off and not letting him fight for her. But he didn’t feel anger right now. He felt longing and hope and this need that ran so deeply beneath his skin that he could feel it in his bones.
Connor cleared his throat. “Are you okay, Maggie? You hit my chest pretty hard.”
Her eyes were only on Ethan for one more second before she looked at Connor. Air whooshed into his lungs, because he hadn’t taken a single breath since he’d seen her. Not one.
“Yeah, I-I’m fine.”
His brows knotted. She wasn’t fine. She was digging her nails into her thumb, something she did when she was nervous or scared.
He’d always had this overwhelming need to protect Maggie. When they were kids and her aunt treated her like trash, all he’d wanted to do was swoop in and save her.
He stepped forward. “Maggie?—”
“I should go.” She took a quick step back, her gaze flicking down the path.
Go? He hadn’t seen her in eleven goddamn years and she wanted to go?
“I’ll see you later.” She curved around his team and walked away.
The fuck? She couldn’t just leave. Not again.
He caught up to her in five strides and gripped her arm. Her quiet gasp slipped into the air, and yeah, he almost gasped too.Because the feel of her beneath his fingers made it all disappear. The years apart. The ache. The heartbreak.
He searched her eyes. “We haven’t seen each other for over a decade and you want to walk away?”
Her mouth opened and closed. “I-I don’t know what to say.” Her gaze caged him. “You look good.”
He didn’t know how to respond to that. He wanted to say it back, but that would be a lie. She didn’t look good. She looked like every version of the woman he’d loved all at once.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Okay.” The answer came quickly. Too quickly.
“Have you seen your aunt?”
There was a small flare of her eyes. It was a mix of pain and apprehension and torment. “No. I know it will happen, but I’m not in a hurry.”
He nodded. Obviously, she hadn’t been in any hurry to contact him either. She had to have known he was here too. “How long have you been back?”
“Not long.” She shuffled her feet like she was uncomfortable. “Polly said you’ve been back a year?”
“Yeah. It’s felt…different.” Mostly because he hadn’t lived in this town since he’d been a teenager. Since he’d hadher. “You’ve got a place?”
“I’m staying in an apartment over Polly’s garage for now.”
