Page 14 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

So I let Angie lead me out onto the dance floor as my mind still zeroed in on the girl standing alone on the back porch. We merged into a slow-moving current of couples, the air thick with perfume, aftershave, and the confining tingle of too many feelings. The music was some old Otis Redding song, one of those crowd-pleasers engineered for swaying and nostalgia. I barely registered it. My head was somewhere else entirely.

As soon as we started moving—her hand in mine, her other on my shoulder—I became hyper-aware that my whole family was watching. My mom, arms crossed, and lips pinched tight with the knowledge that she’d just dropped an atomic bomb into the middle of my life. Damon, eyes wide and wild with anticipation, like he was front row at a sporting event. Even Gio, who I could tell was already regretting whatever part he’d had in this drama, hovered at the edge of the floor with his hands in his pockets and his face set to “concerned bystander.”

Beyond them, past the swirl of party guests, Sadie stood. She was unreadable, her face lit from behind so the details were lost, but the shape of her silhouette was enough to demolish every wall I’d built since the last time we spoke.

I let Angie spin herself into me, but my body moved on autopilot. Every step, every turn, every fake smile was a stall tactic, a countdown. I was already plotting how to break away, how to get to Sadie before she disappeared again. But for now, I was stuck. Because this was my brother’s wedding, and Angie was my date, and sometimes life was just a series of obligations you had to wade through to get to the thing you really wanted.

5

MY KNEES HAVE LEFT THE CHAT

Sadie

The back porch of the main house overlooking the grounds, had always been one of my favorite views in the world. Between the ocean, the hills covered in vines, and the green pastures filled with grazing animals, it had always given me a sense of peace. Tonight, however, I stepped out into it, the air strung taut with the salt of the harbor and the sweetness of wedding cake. I was a bundle of nerves. I slid my hands down my torso, feeling the awkwardness of my borrowed dress courtesy of Selma, a human misfit piece jammed by force into a puzzle where every other edge fit just right. The reception was a living thing, a current of laughter and clinking glasses, children darting underfoot, guests chatting, dancing and enjoying the open bar. I stood on the porch, frozen, hugging a sliver of shadow along the railing.

I was acutely aware of myself as an interloper; everyone here belonged to some constellation of family or community, and I was a returning ghost, still haunted by this town and all its people.

One in particular.

Dawson Lockhart.

My eyes automatically tracked to him. He was on the dance floor with a woman across the sea of farm tables and fairy-lit trellises, a hundred yards and a thousand memories away. I thought I was prepared to see him again, but apparently, I wasn’t.

The second I laid eyes on him, my knees went weak to the point that I thought they might give out beneath me. My heart stopped. Just stopped. There was a sucking sound in my chest, as if my ribs had collapsed, and suddenly the world was nothing but Dawson Lockhart. The noise of the party faded to a distant, watery roar, the clatter of plates and the buzz of wine-loosened conversation sank into the lavender-flecked dusk. Time stood still. The earth tipped, and I hung, for the first time in years, in the gravity of him.

He looked good. So good I had to swallow twice before I could remember how breathing worked. He was taller than I remembered—maybe it was the way he carried himself now, shoulders squared and head unbowed—the thick brown hair, the strong jaw darkened by a day or two of stubble. He wore a white button-down, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing tanned, muscular forearms. The woman in his arms was beaming up at him, but he wore the broody expression he used to get when he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. He looked the same, if you squinted—the same hazel eyes, the same slanted dimple in his left cheek—but he was completely different, like someone had rewritten his DNA when no one was looking.

“Hello, beautiful!” The voice crashed in from my left, loud and friendly as a pair of arms scooped me up and spun me bodily off the ground before I could so much as squeak. I braced for impact, but instead landed on my feet, dizzy and windblown and face-to-face with Damon Lockhart.

At least, I was ninety-nine percent sure it was Damon. He and Dean were mirror images—same brown hair and brown eyes, same devil-may-care grin—but Damon had a way of broadcasting his arrival like a parade of trombones while Dean preferred to stay under the radar.

“Hi!” I managed, trying to keep my composure, though I was shaking like a leaf. Damon beamed, eyes crinkling at the corners.

He whistled, looking me up and down with open approval. “Wow, New York looks good on you.” Damon cradled my upper arms in both hands.

His hands were big and warm and astonishingly gentle, especially given that he was using them to shake me the way a labradoodle might shake a beloved chew toy. “I can’t believe you are here!” he said, giving my shoulders a final, affectionate squeeze before releasing them. “Still as beautiful as ever. You look exactly the same, Sadie.” His gaze was guileless, the smile that split his face as broad and open as I remembered.

A laugh escaped me. “My crow’s feet would disagree with you.”

“You mean your smile tracks? Nah, all those are just proof you are living a happy life.” He looked ready to launch into a string of compliments, but thought better of it and pulled up short. “What brings you back, anyway? Last I heard, you were living the big-city dream in New York.”

The question landed harder than I expected. I glanced at the barn, at the twinkle lights strung over the arbor, at the crush of happy, half-drunk faces I didn’t recognize. I’d known I’d have to answer that question tonight, but the words still felt foreign in my mouth. “It’s Buddy,” I said. “He’s in the hospital. Heart attack and stroke.”

Damon’s face fell, all traces of flirting vanished. “Shit, Sadie. I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. “I saw him earlier. He’s stable, at least for now. I just got off the phone with the ICU, and they told me he was sleeping.” I tried to make it sound like good news, not the devastation that had blindsided me and was imploding my life. “I’m going to head back there soon.”

Damon exhaled, relief sagging his shoulders. “I’m glad he’s okay. I can’t imagine him staying down too long. He’s too stubborn to let something like that take him out. That man is a legend.”

His statement was oddly comforting. Damon had always had a way of saying the right thing at the right moment, like feelings were facts, not emotional landmines.

“And you’re here crashing the wedding for old times’ sake?” He wagged his eyebrows.

“Oh, no, I um…” I found myself suddenly stumbling over my words. “I just got into town this morning and ran into your mom. She pretty much⁠—”

“Kidnapped you,” Damon finished, chuckling, although I knew he wasn’t kidding.

“Insisted on me coming back here,” I corrected. “She said that your brother was getting married. I remember her talking about him.”