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  I schooled my features as best as I could before I got out of the car. When I walked into the house where my entire family waited for me, I smiled and pretended that everything was okay.

  Chapter Seven

  Two dozen roses were waiting for me at my dad’s house, along with a note that said, “I love you.”

  I wasn’t in a forgiving mood. I had a sore head, a sore lip, and a sore heart. I got on the road later than I wanted to and then had to sit through almost three hours of traffic, which turned my five to six-hour drive into a nine-and-a-half-hour drive. To rub salt in my wounds, I missed dinner. Maybe in a day or two¸ I would have softened when I saw the flowers, but not enough time had passed. Not even a little bit.

  Most of my family watched with various expressions and commentary as I vehemently ripped roses from their stems and stuffed them into the garbage disposal and flipped the switch. I tossed the stems and the vase they came in into the trashcan with a muffled crash.

  “Alright,” I breathed, brushing my hands together as if I had just completed dirty work. In a way, that was true. “Who wants to go to Louie’s?”

  Louie’s was the go-to place in town if you wanted some decent food with your alcohol. There were a few pool tables, a dartboard, a jukebox, and live music on Saturday nights. It was only Friday, though, so there would be no live music. However, unless Lou ran out of beer, he already had everything I needed.

  My sister McKenzie, sister-in-law Janet, and my stepmother Daisy and I piled into Daisy’s car while Perry and Cort drove off in Perry’s truck. The moment the doors shut, Kenzie turned and peered at me between the front seats. The interior of the car was mostly dark, but I could see the scowl on her pretty face clearly.

  “What the hell did that piece of cow dung do now?” she demanded to know.

  “Yeah,” Daisy said. “What’s that bastard done now?”

  She wasn’t asking as a mother figure. Despite her five-year marriage to my dad, Daisy was more like my sister. She was only six years older than me, the same age as my brother. The only person who had a problem with her age had been Perry, only because he’d gone to high school with her. I guess I would have been a little freaked out, too, if the prettiest girl in my class became my stepmom and was having sex and making babies with my father.

  “We had a fight, and I don’t want to talk about it,” I said definitively.

  Kenzie ignored my tone of finality. “What ch’all fight about now?”

  After they’d witnessed the floral massacre, there was no way they were going to let the subject go. I knew I had to tell them something, give them a little bite. I would not be telling them about the physical stuff, though. No one knew about any of that, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  With a huff, I said, “He thought I was cheating on him with this guy that comes into the bakery.”

  Janet gasped beside me. “Were you?”

  “No! What kinda girl do you think I am?”

  “Nobody here would judge you if you was that kinda girl,” Daisy said lightly.

  “Right,” McKenzie agreed. “Daisy bein’ a homewrecker was the best thing that could have happened to our family.”

  “Thanks,” my stepmother answered dryly.

  “Well, I don’t need to cheat because I’m done with him.”

  There were three groans all at once. I looked around the car at the other women.

  “I don’t have enough toes, fingers, and tits to count how many times you said you were done,” Daisy said.

  Annoyed, I said, “Well, I’m done with this conversation. I wanted to come out to forget about Caden, y’all. I don’t want to spend the evening bitchin’ about him.”

  I was back home for all of one hour, and I was already returning to my verbal roots. It would take me a few days after I went back north to fix my accent and speech. I wasn’t ashamed of where I came from, but people took me less seriously when I used terms like “fixin’ to” and “down yonder.”

  “Just do me a favor,” Kenzie said as we got out of the car a couple minutes later. “Don’t get too drunk. You promised to bake for my shower.”

  “I can bake a baby shower cake just fine drunk,” I smiled and bumped her lightly with my arm. “I’ve done it before.”

  She shook her head even as she smiled back at me with matching blue eyes. “Crazy ass city girl.”

  I put my hands on her swollen belly. “I promise it will be amazing.”

  She sighed and put one of her hands over mine. “I miss you all the time, Darla.”

  “I miss you, too, Kenz. Maybe when this peanut is shelled, you can come visit me.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe.”

  That may as well have been a straight up no, but I always extended the invitation, even when I knew what the answer would be.

  When we walked inside, Cort and Perry were already standing at a pool table, chalking their sticks and sipping on tall mugs of beer. I almost looked away after seeing the other people they were talking to were the same familiar faces I’ve seen all my life, but amongst those faces was one I didn’t quite recognize. I felt as if I had seen him before, but I couldn’t remember where. He was tall and solid looking. He had brown hair, cut close on the sides, but long on the top and a short, full beard.

  Beards were in, but I didn’t really care for the lumberjack look. However, admittedly, the semi-stranger was a good looking guy, even with the exuberance of facial hair.

  Folks from neighboring towns popped in from time to time, but I even knew most of them, even though I hadn’t lived in the area for half a decade. Our little part of Augusta County wasn’t what you’d call a progressive location. It moved slowly enough for even me to keep abreast of anything new, including new people.

  The semi-familiar man didn’t look like he was from the area. He wasn’t tatted up and pierced like Caden, but he just looked…different. I supposed I hadn’t lost my ability to sniff out an outsider in my absence either.

  “Who’s that?” I asked my sister.

  She followed my gaze to the tall, dark-haired man talking to her husband.

  “Oh, that’s Connor. You met Connor before. He and Perry went to UVA together.”

  When my brother went off to college, I was only twelve years old. He brought friends home from time to time, but I didn’t remember most of them. I wasn’t one of those stupid little girls that followed my big brother around, crushing on his friends.

  “I don’t remember meeting him.”

  Kenzie shrugged. “Probably not. He only came over a couple times, and you were really young. He moved to town this past fall, but he’s been workin’ for Corrections for more than a year.”

  “With that beard? I thought the correctional officers couldn’t have beards.”

  Except for a little bit of stubble from time to time, I couldn’t ever remember seeing my dad with any facial hair because of his job at the prison.

  “He works with the computers and things like that. I guess he can have whatever the hell he wants on his face.”

  He looked up just then, saw McKenzie and gave her a courteous smile and nod. Then his eyes drifted over to me. We stared at each other, and something fluttered very softly in my belly.

  Someone called my name. Reluctantly, I pulled my gaze away from Connor and headed to the bar to drink away my woes.

  Chapter Eight

  More than an hour later, many of the patrons had cleared out, including McKenzie, Daisy, and Cort. I sat alone at the bar, a little drunk, while Janet and Perry played pool on the other side of the room with Connor.

  I stole a glance over there. Connor was gazing at me. Again. We’d been looking at each other all night. At first, he would smile and duck his head or glance away, like he was embarrassed for getting caught, but he always, always looked back.

  I bit my bottom lip and smiled at him, but after a few seconds, I turned my attention back to my phone. With the Google Earth app, I wasn’t just sitting at the bar in Louie’s, but I was also standing on a
busy Parisian sidewalk.

  Although I had made it out of the backcountry of Virginia and had been fortunate enough to work and live in a city rich with culinary brilliance, I still wanted more. When I was growing up, I’d felt like I was in a box. I thought I had broken free of it when I moved away, but I was beginning to believe that my box had just expanded to Philadelphia. I was still in it, except I had a psychopath boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—in the box with me.

  I sighed. I wanted to get the hell out of the box and leave the ex behind as well. Even after all we’d been through in the morning, the thought of it gave me a pang, though. Even when I hated Cade, I loved him.

  I sighed again and ordered another beer.

  I was still wrapped up in my digital exploration of the earth when someone took a seat two stools away from me. I didn’t look up right away to see who it was, so absorbed I was in my thoughts of a life on the other side of the world and a life with or without Caden.

  “Louie, I’ll take another beer, and…”

  I looked up suddenly at the sound of his voice. It lacked that thick redneck resonance that was prevalent in our part of the state, and especially dense in my town.

  It was the bearded stranger that I’d been making eyes at all night. Connor. He tapped his fingers on the bar to the country song playing on the jukebox as he looked over the menu.

  “Whatcha thinkin’ ‘bout, Connor?” Louie asked in a friendly tone as if he were well acquainted with the man.

  I was impressed. Outsiders almost never got on Louie’s good side.

  “I don’t know. I don’t want a burger, but I want…something.”

  “Nachos,” I suggested. “Nachos are perfect when you want…something.”

  He glanced over at me, surprised. I was surprised, too, when his bashful smile returned and brought those flutters back with it.

  His voice softened a little when he spoke again. “Nachos does sound good.”

  “It’s a good manly kind of snack.”

  “Louie, I’ll take the nachos,” he said without looking at him. His eyes, the color of brandy, were fixed on me.

  “I’m glad you didn’t order anything dainty like chicken fingers or fried cheese.”

  “So am I. I wouldn’t want to give you such a bad first impression of my masculinity.” He extended his hand. “We’ve met before, but it was a long time ago. I’m Connor.”

  I looked at it. I was almost afraid to touch it. My first meeting with Cade came to mind, but I quickly slammed a door on that. It was just a handshake. I put my smaller hand into his. It was warm and strong. He shook my hand firmly, if not a little slowly, before releasing it.

  “Right,” I nodded. “You’re one of my brother’s college friends. I don’t really remember you.”

  He leaned on the bar as he chuckled softly. “I guess I wasn’t very memorable.”

  I put my mug of beer to my lips and muttered, “You’re memorable now.”

  Connor heard me. He laughed again, a soft, breathy sound, glanced over at me and glanced away. “Yeah, well, you’re very memorable now, too.”

  I hid my smile with another long sip of my beer. By the time I put it down, I had a semblance of control over my face.

  “Where ya from, Connor?” I asked.

  He grinned at me and raised one eyebrow. “You mean you don’t know? Everybody else in this town knew every detail of my life before the ink was dry on the deed to my house.”

  “Word does travel fast in a town so small, but lesson number one, Connor…” I leaned toward him and whispered, “I ain’t like everybody else.”

  I heard him take a breath. It wasn’t loud, but I heard it just the same. His gaze lingered on mine for a moment before he looked away again. “I agree, Darla. You’re definitely not like everybody else.”

  Louie set a beer down in front of him and cast us a curious glance before moving on to another customer.

  “I’m from a town a few minutes from Ocean City, Maryland called Berlin,” Connor said after a few sips of his beer.

  My eyebrows shot up. “And you moved here? On purpose?”

  I must have been hilarious because I had him laughing yet again as he absently rubbed his hairy jaw with his hand.

  “It’s not so bad here. You keep coming back.”

  “Because my family would skin me alive if I didn’t come back every now and again. I wouldn’t be here at all this weekend if it weren’t for my sister’s baby shower, not with a monster snowstorm bearing down on us.”

  “That’s right. McKenzie said you were baking the cake for her shower. With all the talk about nachos, I forgot that you’re a ‘fancy baker up north.’ I hear you’re pretty good.”

  “I’m amazing,” I said with a pretentious smile.

  “And very modest,” Connor added as Louie put a large plate of nachos on the bar in front of him. “Louie, can you give Miss Simpson another beer? She’s going to need something to drink to wash down her share of nachos.”

  I laughed softly as he moved off his stool to the one next to mine and put the plate of food between us.

  “You’re gonna make me fat.” I narrowed my eyes accusingly at him but took a loaded chip.

  He swallowed some beer and swallowed the food in his mouth before answering. “There’s nothing wrong with a little junk in the trunk.”

  I glanced down at my own trunk as best I could and frowned. “I ain’t got much junk to speak of. I wish I did.”

  Connor was getting over his bashfulness. His eyes gleamed with what my mama called devilment. It made me shiver just a tiny bit. He leaned toward me and murmured, “I think your trunk is fantastic.”

  Both my eyebrows went up again. “Been lookin’, have you?”

  His ears turned pink, but he pushed on. “I did look a few times—I am a man, after all.”

  I nodded my head and shrugged a shoulder. “You did order the nachos.”

  He winked at me but was polite enough not to speak with his mouth full.

  “So, when is the wedding?” I asked casually after another bite.

  His forehead wrinkled as he gave me a questioning look. “What wedding?”

  “Ours. We’re sharing a plate of nachos, and you bought me a beer. That’s as good as a proposal of marriage in this town, at least other folks will think so.”

  He took a long sip of beer before he forced his face into a serious expression, but his eyes were bright with mirth. “I can’t marry you yet. I haven’t even tasted your…cake.”

  I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “Well, of course. All the guys always want to eat my moist…cake.”

  I mentally slapped myself for saying that out loud, but Connor’s ears turned that crazy shade of pink as he held back a smile. His head tilted toward mine as if he were about to tell me a secret and his voice dropped almost to a whisper.

  “I think it’s fair that I get a preview of your…cake before marriage. What if it’s dry?”

  I tilted my own head toward him until we were only inches apart. To anyone watching, we probably looked like we were about to engage in a lustful kiss. I

  “My cake is never dry, Connor. It will be the best thing you will ever have in your mouth.”

  I shivered slightly when his eyes dropped to my mouth and lingered there for a whole damn heartbeat.

  “While I don’t doubt that your cake is sinfully delicious, I think there might possibly be something else with the potential to be the best thing I’ll ever have in my mouth.”

  Oh, the flutters.

  I realized that I was experiencing that sensation that I’d only heard about from other girls. Not even on my first date with Cade had I experienced the butterflies-in-the-belly feeling.

  I stilled abruptly. The thought of Caden was like throwing ice cold water on a newly kindled fire. There weren't flames yet, but a steady stream of smoke and a growing heat. I pulled back from Connor and forced my lips to form a smile.

  “Damn, it’s getting late,” I said with a slight tremor in my voice. />
  I sensed his confusion at my sudden change and felt his heavy gaze on me.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” he agreed reluctantly.

  I climbed off my stool as I tossed some bills down on the counter for Louie’s tip. As I pulled my coat on, I made myself look Connor in the face again. He stood up, too, looking baffled.

  “Thank you for the nachos and beer,” I said, as I zipped myself up. I was getting all ready to go without even knowing if my brother and Janet were ready. If they weren’t, I’d walk back to my dad’s. I had to get away from this man and quickly.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered automatically as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Darla, did I…offend you?”

  Wow, did I feel like an asshole, but I smiled at him anyway, barely. I was embarrassed that I had flirted with him so shamelessly. Moist cake? Seriously? It wasn’t even good flirting.

  “No, Connor. Not at all. It’s just that it’s late, and I had a really long day. I had this…well this thing this morning, and I left late and then got stuck in traffic for two hours on my way down. The traffic was apocalyptic! It was ridiculous. I’m exhausted, and I have so much to do tomorrow—I got a lotta runnin’ around to do tomorrow, and I gotta help my mama and my dad’s wife make food for the shower and—”

  “Darla,” he said my name as he held up his hands to make me stop. He looked half exasperated and half amused. “You’re rambling.”

  I bit my bottom lip and made a concerted effort not to look away from him. “I am…rambling.” I cleared my throat.

  He nodded and studied my face for a moment and crossed his arms.

  “So, was it my breath? Did I have nacho cheese in my beard?”

  I laughed softly. It relieved some of the tension that I had caused between us.

  “No,” I sighed. “Your breath smells like beer and canned cheese sauce, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And I didn’t see any food in your beard, though I did worry about that happening.”

  One side of his mouth pulled up into a small smile, but he wasn’t letting me off the hook. “So, what’s up? Usually, when a woman blows me off, I take it in stride and go on my way, but…” He paused, looked away, and then took a step closer to me as his gaze returned to my eyes. “We’ve been stealing glances at each other all night. I wasn’t sure if I was going to try to talk to you when I came up here, because you’re Perry’s little sister, and I know your dad. I wasn’t sure if they’d take me up into the mountain and shoot me.”