“Hey!” Johanna lunged forward. “Give that back!”
Paige danced backward across the kitchen grinning like a menace while Johanna realized chasing her would only encourage the behavior. With a long-suffering sigh, she sankback into the chair and took another bite of pancake instead.
“Blaze invited Jo to a bonfire tonight,” Paige announced dramatically.
Their mother popped the last piece of bacon into her mouth before rising from the table. “You should go.”
Johanna looked up so fast her curls shifted over her shoulders. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Paige clutched her chest theatrically, batting her thick eyelashes. “And wear something that reminds him exactly what he's missing.”
“Talking will be good for the both of you,” her mother said calmly while carrying dishes toward the sink. “You have unfinished business to discuss.”
Johanna looked toward the kitchen windows where sunlight spilled across the backyard and illuminated the old oak tree her father hung swings from years ago.
Unfinished business.
That was certainly one way to describe the emotional tornado Blaze dropped back into her life.
Her father folded the newspaper completely now, giving her his full attention.
“Baby girl.”
Johanna looked back at him.
“If you spend your whole life afraid of getting hurt,” he said gently, “eventually you stop letting yourself feel anything real.”
The room quieted around his words.
That was the thing about her father. He rarely involved himself in emotional conversations unless something truly mattered to him.
But when he spoke, everybody listened.
Johanna swallowed slowly because the worst part was… they were making sense.
And she hated that.
Paige leaned across the island with her huge expressive eyes sparkling dangerously. “Well.”
Johanna already distrusted that tone completely. “Well, what?”
“What are you wearing tonight?”
“Can we not discuss this over breakfast?”
“No,” Paige answered honestly.
Her mother reached across the table and patted Johanna’s hand gently. “Mary Jo, let that man pursue you a little.” The softness in her voice made Johanna pause.
Because maybe that was part of the problem too.
Blaze had always pursued her openly. He never hid his feelings or made her question where she stood with him. Loving her had seemed to come naturally to him in a way that still felt overwhelming after years of dating emotionally unavailable men who communicated through confusion, mixed signals, and emotional avoidance.
The problem had never been whether Blaze loved her. The problem was that once upon a time he'd loved her and still left.
But Blaze felt different this time. And somehow that scared her more than uncertainty ever could, because trusting him again meant risking the kind of heartbreak she'd barely survived the first time.
